A/N- I hope you guys remember this but just in case, I wrote my story in a world where COVID doesn't exist. And where Mens and Woman's Street debuted at the Olympics in 2016 and Men's and Woman's Park debuts in 2020. So Dakota medaled in the Women's Street in 2016. Cool? Cool
(3rd Person POV)
Three years after the battle in space, it was 2020. (in a world where COVID19 didn't exist) Making it Ryan, Spyder, Harris, Veracity and Dakotas senior year of high school. And the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics were just around the corner. With support of her now boyfriend of four years Ryan, and her friends and sister, Dakota had stayed true to her word and was going for gold this time around. This time in the new event, Women's Park. Four years ago she earned a bronze medal in Women's Street, this year, she shifted her focus to the new event.
Dakota graduated with the rest of her class in June, got accepted to multiple colleges and universities, narrowed down her options, then just a few weeks later she flew off to Tokyo with the rest of Team USA. Her sister flew there as well to watch her compete, while most of her friends back in Bay City, held a watch party at the Walkers house. Ryans parents, Grace and Davis, his biological parents Randall and Violet, Kendall's boyfriend, Lucas, whom she met when Dakota was a sophomore, his little brother Jackson and more of their family, and a bunch of other friends, also joined the party.
It was an expensive trip, but joining Dakota in Tokyo, was Ryan, Mark, Spyder, Harris, Veracity, and Kendall.
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(Ryans POV)
The five of us all sat in the stands at the Womens Park Final, the skaters hadn't entered the park yet, so the five of us just sat chatting, when my phone rang, with a FaceTime call from Dakota.
"Hey." I said answering the phone.
"Hi." She said propping her phone up on something and looked into a mirror.
"You ready?" I asked. She took a breath and nodded.
"I think so. At the same time I'm terrified." She answers, while I watched her clip a gold chain around her neck with a small rose charm on the bottom. My 18th birthday gift to her.
"What ever the results are, what ever the judges think, we're all proud of you." I said. "But I think I can safely say no one wants this more than you do."
"Got that right." She chuckled softly. "I have to go soon, they're going to want us all out on the park before the competition. Just wanted to call and talk to you for a second."
"Do you want to see everyone before you go?" I asked.
"Definitely." She nodded.
"Okay one second." I said standing up from my seat. "Hey guys, guess who." I held the phone up so she could see everybody and everyone could see her.
"Your all matching me!" She said happily while everyone waved and she showed the tank top version of the shirt that she was wearing.
"All right D, we'll let you go." I said.
"We love you!" Spyder screamed from the background.
"Love you guys to." She laughed.
"I love you." I said just to her.
"Love you too." She smiled. "Bye."
(Dakotas POV)
Here's the other skaters that are in the finale
Hiraki Kokona - Team Japan - Age 12
Sky Brown - Team Great Britain - Age 13
Okamoto Misugu- Team Japan - Age 15
Poppy Olsen - Team Australia - Age 21
Bryce Wettstein - Team USA - Age 17
Dora Varella - Team Brazil - Age 20
Yndiara Asp - Team Brazil - Age 23
Less than an hour later, me and the 7 other finalists all entered the park, fully geared with helmets, knee pads, wrist braces and boards. They lined us up facing the camera for the tv broad cast, I was next to my fellow American teammate, Bryce Wettstein, who carried her ukulele. Over the past few years, through all the qualifiers and the first few rounds of the competition we had became very good friends and I have fun giving her senior year advice since she's a year younger than me.
"Ready superstar?" I asked her.
"Yeah. You?" She said. I nodded.
"I hope so." I answered.
"Hey don't stress, you're the great Dakota Rose. You got this." She says trying to ease my nerves.
"Do I have to remind you how X-games went?" I sighed.
"Kota seriously, get that out of your head." She says, "you had one bad competition it's no big deal. So what that competition was X-games, you made it your here, focus on what you came here to do."
"I'm trying I promise." I said.
"Is it working?" She asked after a few seconds of silence.
"No." I laughed. One of the TV crew members gave a signal from behind the camer in front of the 8 of us, prompting us to wave at the camera. The camera men then began to move down the line of us where they would project our name, country, things like that on the TV broadcast. They started with Okamoto Misugu from Japan, currently ranked number one in the world. She definitely earned that spot, but I was still a little salty about that. I was ranked number one for a long time, almost two years until the X-games qualifier recently, where I bombed most of my runs and dropped a few places.
Then they moved onto Sky Brown of Great Britain. I'd seen people on social media call her the new me. She's 13, at her first Olympics, she's a brand, has a huge social media presence, has her own original song, that I personally loved. Only difference, I was 14 at my first Olympics. Since arriving to Tokyo, I got to know the skaters so well, and there's a reason Sky is as popular as she is, she's just a sweetheart. She's so fun to be around, and loves to inspire others.
Next was Hiraki Kokona, from Japan. I was certainly young at the last Olympics, but Hiraki is only 12 years old. She may be only 12, but she's very mature, put together, I'll be very surprised if she doesn't walk out of here with a medal.
Next up was my USA teammate, Bryce. She smiled, waved to the camera before strumming on her ukulele. Bryce is so unique, she's unapologetically herself, and ever since coming to Japan we've just became even closer friends, and we were so excited to represent the US together.
Next was me.
(Ryans POV)
We watched as the camera moved away from Bryce, who I had met a few times at some of Dakotas competitions, over to her. Our whole section, backed up by some other USA athletes that came to support Bryce and Dakota, cheered while she smiled, as she always does, and put her hands around the outside of her logo on the front of her shirt, before stepping on the back of her board, picking it up from the ground, showing the camera the USA print on the bottom, also holding the rose charm on the chain around her neck. The camera moved away from her over to the next person while she looked up into the stands at us and blew a kiss with just two fingers, that I gladly returned. I don't know how it started, but we do it at every competition, it was something we started doing when we Sophomores.
They then moved on to introduce, Poppy Olsen from Australia, Yndiara Asp and Dora Varella from Brazil.
(Dakotas POV)
Here's the actual recording of the real thing, if you feel like 'following along' or just want a visual representation of what's going on, everything that happens in the story happens in here, except all of Yosozumis runs are basically Dakotas in the story. For the sake of the story we're are acting as if she was never at this Olympics. Cool? Cool.
After they got through all of us, we all stood of to the side while Dora Varella stood by the bowl, since she was up first. As sweet as she is, she can be scary on her board, no one came in here underestimating her. She ran in at the very beginning of her 45 second clock and started of very strong, one of her final tricks being a 360. Dora was known for flawless 360s. However I'm known for something to. Brazils fans cheered while she walked over to the rest of us that sat under Team Brazils umbrella in between Great Britain and USA's. Her score of a 40.42 was posted while the rest of us came over celebrating and congratulating her.
Her Brazilian teammate Yndiara was up next. She was much more aggressive and fast than Dora, still a great run. Her score was given at 37.34 while Australia's Poppy Olsen stood at the ready for her first run. Its really hard to believe that she's one of the oldest women competing, and she's only 21. It does show though, she has a much more mature, experienced feel to her runs.
"She's giving you a run for your money ay?" I said to Bryce while Poppy hit a foot plant, Bryces signature move. Only four seconds short of her run being over, she went for one more grind, and fell out of it. Bryce was up next so she was getting ready when I stood up with her and ran over to where Poppy was climbing out of the bowl.
"Hey no worries you did great." I said hugging her.
"Thanks guys." She smiles while Bryce joined us. "Man I thought I had that."
"Hey, no big deal. Next time, you got three runs." Bryce adds. "Hey look at that, 35.20, not bad for falling out of your run."
"Yeah could be worse." She agrees. "Good luck!" She says to Bryce before walking away. The two of us did the unofficial Team USA handshake we came up with on the plane before she stepped up on the platform.
"You got this Bryce!" I cheered when she dropped in to start her run. She came around a few times hitting some tricks before she hit a foot plant and got a lot of air. "Oh there you go! There you go!" At the end of her run when she hopped back out of the bowl I went over celebrating with her. "Thats what I'm talking bout! Thats how you foot plant!"
"Woo that felt good." She laughs with an arm on my shoulder while we walked back to our umbrella. The USA section cheered when her score of 44.50 was posted, moving her to first. "Here you go." She says handing me my board. "Go kick some ass." She smiles while we did the Team USA handshake again before I walked up onto the elevated platform above the bowl. I took one more glance at my "personal cheering section." As far up as they were I could see Ryan do our two finger kiss thing at me this time, that I returned before turning to the bowl.