Australia's Keegan Palmer, USA's Tom Schaar take gold, silver in skateboarding park final

PARIS – Though the gear they wore represented two different countries – Tom Schaar in red, white and blue while Keegan Palmer wore Australia’s yellow and green – they are both San Diego kids.

And very good friends.

So even though they knew they’d be competing against each other Wednesday in the men’s park skateboarding competition, their interactions in the Olympic Village have been no different than back home.

“That’s how skating has been, we’ve been doing contests since we were both little kids,” Schaar said. “And it’s always going to be like that. It’s not supposed to be a super competitive thing. There’s no animosity between any of us, it’s just about skating.”

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The rivalry, to the extent it’s a rivalry, goes back and forth. That’s how it is with great skaters. The margins are thin.

And on Wednesday, Palmer happened to be a little bit better, taking the gold medal while Schaar stood next to him on the podium with silver.

“He’s got a really deep bag of tricks, and he can always put it together,” Schaar said of Palmer. “He’s just very clutch in those moments where he needs it.”

Palmer’s winning run – each skater in the final had three tries to post the top score – came in at 93.11, just barely ahead of Schaar’s 92.23. Brazil’s Augusto Akio took the bronze medal. Schaar had one more opportunity to try and take the lead but came off the board toward the end of what looked like a potential winning run.

The trick that tripped up Schaar was one he had executed in the previous run, but he said he didn’t quite have enough speed to pull it off.

But Schaar, the youngest X Games gold medalist and the first skateboarder to successfully pull off a trick with 1,080 degrees of rotation in competition, said his first Olympic experience had been deeply enjoyable, with the highlights being meeting the U.S. basketball team and getting a hug from Snoop Dogg.

He said he planned to celebrate Wednesday night but was looking forward to some time off.

“My body’s been very sore for like the last 18 months,” he said. “I’m ready to relax.”

For Palmer, who was born in San Diego but grew up in Australia until moving back at age 14 to become a professional skateboarder, it was a second straight Olympic gold in park. That’s already an incredible résumé for someone just 21 years old.

“We’ve seen skaters not even reaching their peak in performance until their 30s,” skateboarding legend Tony Hawk said. “So he’s got a long career ahead of him.”

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Australia's Keegan Palmer, USA's Tom Schaar take gold, silver in skateboarding park final