Brazil’s Leticia Bufoni has been skateboarding since she was 10 years old, and now, on the verge of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 in 2021, is one of the world’s best looking to make her mark on the Games.
Growing up in São Paulo, Bufoni saw her friends skating, and persuaded them to let her borrow a board to join in. She hasn’t looked back since.
That’s not to say the early days were easy. Far from it: her friends grew bored of the sport eventually, meaning she trained alone. Then, her father broke her first board in two with a power saw to stop her skating.