Skateboarding’s entry into the Olympics evolved into a tense can-you-top-this exhibition in the men’s street competition, as one world-class skateboarder after another did nuanced variations of tricks off the park’s biggest feature, a 12-stair drop with three different rails. It was an all-or-nothing venture. Falls got zero points. Stuck landings earned scores to keep. Each trick ended either on the concrete in despair or on the skateboard in some shades of relief and elation.

That is where Yuto Horigome of Japan, the son of a Tokyo taxi driver, came back from a shaky contest start with back-to-back tricks that shot him to a gold medal, just eight miles from where he grew up.

It is where Nyjah Huston of the United States, the gold medal favorite and the biggest name in contest skateboarding, fell four times in a row, ending his hope to add an Olympic medal to his overstuffed trophy room. It is where the two friendly rivals embraced at the end, in the heat of the searing midday sun at Ariake Urban Sports Park.

While Huston’s inability to medal was a surprise, it helped leave room for Jagger Eaton, a fellow American, to grab the bronze medal, behind Kelvin Hoefler of Brazil.

Each athlete performed two timed runs through the skate park, hustling for 45 seconds on their own path through a vast course of ramps, stairs and rails. They then took turns trying five tricks of their choosing. A panel of judges scored each run and trick — seven scores in all — on a 10-point scale. The best four scores were added together. Nerves seemed to jangle several top competitors at the start of the final, and clean runs were hard to find. Huston admitted to feeling the pressure, but said that landing technical tricks was a risky business.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know I definitely let some people down, and I have no problem admitting that. But I’m human, you know.”

Hoefler, a veteran of big contests and the Street League Skateboarding series for much of the past decade, looked in command from the start, with back-to-back runs that gave him the midway lead. Eaton, too, calmly planted two strong scores. And after a fall on his first run, Huston had the highest score in the finals on his second try, a 9.11, that lifted him into the top echelon before the skaters took turns performing five single tricks. Bigger scores were on the way, but so was disappointment. Hoefler stumbled too many times to stay in contention for a gold medal, but hung on to silver. Eaton flicked away the pressure and sandwiched two high scores in the trick portion, enough to earn him bronze.

The final was a global affair, with eight skaters from six countries. Huston, who lives in Laguna Beach, California, and Eaton, from Mesa, Arizona, represented the United States. France also had two finalists, Vincent Milou and Aurelien Giraud, who had the best score in the preliminary heats.

Skateboarding has worked for decades to get into the Olympics, and the men’s street contest was the first of four at the Ariake Urban Sports Park. The women’s street skaters will compete Monday, and men’s and women’s park will be contested in more than a week.

(New York Times News Service)