Jordan Santana competes in the Combi Bowl in California.
Houston's Jordan Santana is only 17 years old, but he hopes to participate in the women's park event with the first American Olympic skateboard team in Tokyo this summer.
Jordan Santana participates in the exposure competition.
Jordan Santana participates in the World Skating Olympic Qualifiers World Championship.
Jordan Santana is on a skateboard with two-time X Games gold medalist Christian Hosoi for the first time. Hosoi later became Santana's mentor and first major sponsor.
At the age of 11, Jordan Santana was skating at Spring Skate Park.
At the age of 11, Jordan Santana collaborated with Truth Riders, a Christian skateboarding group based in Houston.
Jordan Santana is skating at the Lee and Joe Jamail skate parks in downtown Houston.
Jordan Santana drives a 540 McTwist.
Jordan Santana, a 17-year-old skateboarder, sits at the top of the ramp, with the helmet and pads fastened as necessary as necessary, looking down at the bowl of the next ramp she is about to conquer.
This is something that Houston natives have accomplished countless times in the past 11 years. When Santana took off on the board, she attacked the bowl with ferocity and flames. She moves like a professional, and usually, she completes the race with skills not commonly seen among skaters of her age.
"She is skating like any other girl you have never seen before," said Lee Leal, one of the founders of Embassy Skateboards, who followed Santana throughout the journey. "...When she puts on the pads and helmet, she just charges. She charges a fee-she likes it. She likes challenges."
This summer, Santana hopes to make another success on the international stage of the Olympic Games.
This summer, skateboarding will make its debut in the Olympic Games in Tokyo. There will be four events-Men's Street, Men's Park, Women's Street and Women's Park-with 20 skaters from all over the world participating in each competition. Santana hopes to compete in the women's park.
The COVID-19 pandemic has postponed the Olympics for a year, which means that qualifying has also been postponed. After no competitions for more than a year, the qualifiers will return at the American Skateboarding National Championships starting on April 9.
Due to the continuing pandemic, the event started with a virtual open qualifier, where skaters submit their running videos during the competition. Different stages will take place in the next few weeks, culminating in the face-to-face finals on the street (in Los Angeles from May 6th to 7th) and in the park (from May 8th to 9th in Vista, California).
Although other competitions that could help her qualify for the Olympics still exist after the nationals, Santana said she has begun to prove that she belongs to the Olympic roster there.
Santana said she didn't think she was a child prodigy, but the people around her must be. Her supporters see her not only as the source of inspiration for skaters in Texas, but also the source of inspiration for all female skaters. Seeing her on the biggest stage in Tokyo will prove that she is a star in the skateboarding industry.
"That's a dream come true," Santana said. "There are only so many people in the world who can say that they have participated in the Olympics. I hope that can be me."
Christian Hosoi is a legend in the skateboarding world.
He turned professional in 1982, founded Hosoi Skateboards in 1985, and won two X Games legendary gold medals in the 2009-10 season.
The journey was not good. The drug problem Hosoi dealt with led him to jail in the early 2000s. But his journey led him to find God and eventually a 6-year-old girl named Jordan Santana.
Her father Israel watched the documentary "Rising Son: The Legend of Skateboarder Christian Hosoi" in which Hosoi discussed overcoming his personal demons. He thinks Hosoi is the best candidate to testify in Santanas Church.
Hosoi flew to Houston and gave a speech before visiting the Lee and Joe Jamail skate park. There, Hosoi heard a young Jordan—who had never been on the board before—that she wanted to give it a try.
Hosoi asked everyone to come out of the bowl, took Santana's hand, and concentrated on helping her get on the skateboard for the first time.
That moment 11 years ago was the moment Hosoi believed to inspire a passion for skateboarding, and it still drives Santana to this day.
"Jordan was like,'I want to get into the bowl!' I thought,'I'm sick, put her in the bowl,' I think this is what it is for her," Hosoi said. "After that, it was just an uninterrupted obsession with skateboarding."
Santana has been educated at home since first grade, as does her sister Lauren. This decision deprived the opportunity to meet other children, so Santana initially used skateboarding as a way to make friends.
But then skateboarding became an important part of the Santana world. She learned about the culture and excitement of skateboarding. Her skills and her relationship with Hosoi have developed to the point where he brings her into his skateboarding team.
Soon, Santana stopped going to the park to meet new people. She goes there for a bike ride.
"This is the meaning of skateboarding. It helped me meet other kids," Santana said. "Then I saw people competing. In 2015, I went to X Games to watch other people skating, and then I snowballed and snowballed and became more."
Although Santana is "born" on skateboarding, her father said that for about four years, they have not visited the skate park more than two or three times a week.
It wasn't until January 4, 2014 that Jordan participated in the game for the first time-when Israel said he was "almost unable to bypass the bowl".
But it's not just lack of experience that is bad for Santana. One of the main obstacles she faced in the early days was that she did not come from California, the “sacred place” of skateboarding.
"This is where the industry is, the magazines are there, the photographers, the videographers, the stories are all there. The excitement and stills are in California," Lyell said. "It's more challenging for her in Texas."
Israel says that many Californians have been exposed to skateboarding at a very young age, and their parents "train" their children by staying near the skate park and mentoring them. This is not how it normally operates in Texas.
"In Houston, the situation is different," Israel Santana said. "It's like parents sending their kids to a skate park and then taking off to let them play on their own. I'm not criticizing Houston's parents, but it's just the difference."
But Leal stated that Santana has talent and dedication — and a great mentor to Hosoi — on her side.
In the first few years of the competition, Santana not only ranked among the best, but often won.
In 2016, Santana won the Rocky Mountain Rampage in the Under-14s Bowl. In 2019, Santana won the Vans Girls Combi championship in the amateur group, only a few months after her broken leg. In September of the same year, she ranked second among all Americans at the Women's Park World Championships in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and was selected for the United States National Team.
Not bad for skateboarders from Houston.
"She still has her mark (on the skateboard)," said Eric Visentin, owner of the Southside Skatepark frequented by Santana. "She is still working hard to get things done and get recognition because we have to earn more here (in Texas). Every point of recognition earned 10 times, and she won everything."
When the epidemic ended the Olympic qualifiers in 2020, Santana was the fourth-ranked American in women's parks.
As the host country, Japan can send up to four skaters for each event, but other countries can only send up to three skaters. Therefore, although Santana is on the US team, her ranking is not enough to send her to Tokyo.
This is why everyone around Santana thinks that postponing is a blessing in disguise.
"She has a rich experience for a year. Last year, she may not have done it. Now, it seems that many people want Jordan to tear it to pieces," Israel Santana said.
In particular, she has the opportunity to perfect a new technique that she hopes will strengthen her position in the Olympics.
McTwist was created by Mike McGill in the 1980s. After it was created, skaters such as Hosoi and Tony Hawk added it to their skills. But in the more than 30 years since its birth, not many girls have been able to land.
In 2020, Santana will become one of the few.
She said that for more than four months, she had to work several hours a day to finally land on McTwist, and once she got it, muscle memory would take over. Her trick was so good that Hawke posted a Santana McTwist video on his Instagram account when he visited Vert Ramp in Houston in November.
Santana said: "Before I finally start to understand the rotation and the way I am going to stand, I don't know how many times I have fallen." "After that I tried to land it, and then all the waterfalls before you finally stick to it. It all happened."
Santanas will not reveal most of Jordan's skills, but Israel said that her work to build her own arsenal should give her a good chance in qualifying.
But whether Santana won the gold medal in Tokyo or did not participate in the Olympics at all, people around her said that this was not her only chance to make a mark on the skateboard. At only 17 years old, Santana is ahead of her time in building heritage.
Hosoi said he has been to Texas many times in the past and he skated with stars such as Leal, John "Tex" Gibson, Ken Fillion and Craig Johnson.
One day, Hosoi said, this child prodigy will join the group of legends.
"As someone who has experienced it firsthand, (Santana) must be on the road," Hosoi said. "I really believe she has it in her heart."
Ryan Herrera is a sports intern for the Houston Chronicle in the spring of 2021. He is from Elk Grove Village, Illinois, and recently graduated from the School of Journalism and Education at the University of Missouri. Ryan was previously the Mizzou beat writer for Rock M Nation, where he covered Mizzou football, men's basketball and baseball. He also served as an assistant sports editor and high school sports reporter in Missouri, Columbia, and intern at the Columbia Daily Tribune in the summer of 2018.
Ryan was admitted to the School of Sports Journalism, where he is a member of the class of 2020 and will also be a member of the upcoming class of 2021. In the fall of 2020, Ryan spent four months teaching English and Journalism High School (Illinois) at Rolling Meadows as a student teacher, earning a degree in middle school English education. You can follow Ryan on Twitter @ryan_a_herrera.