Chloe Covell

Three years ago Chloe Covell was sitting on the couch with her dad, former NRL player Luke, watching Australian Keegan Palmer win skateboarding gold at the Tokyo Olympics.

It was just the inspiration she needed. Now the most exciting up-and-coming talent in street skateboarding, 14-year-old Chloe could become one of Australia’s youngest Olympic medallists as the Paris Games.

“I did actually leave school early so I could watch it (Tokyo),” she said. “But it was worth it, it was cool.”

Chloe took up skating as a six-year-old, attracted to the sport when she saw American street skater Nyjah Huston perform “a cool trick” at the X Games.

“I was just watching the TV and the X Games came on,” she said. “After I saw that I just wanted to start.”

From there, things moved quickly. Chloe quickly developed an arsenal of impressive tricks.

Within two years she was entering competitions on the Gold Coast and three years after her first run at a skate park she was winning her first medals on the world stage. 

At the X Games in Chiba, Japan, in 2022, the then 12-year-old won bronze in women’s street. She went on to become the youngest athlete to win two medals at the annual action sports event before the age of 13.

Early in 2023, still aged just 12, Chloe won a silver medal at the world championships in Sharjah, in the UAE. Critically, that performance carried valuable Olympic ranking points towards qualification for Paris.

Chloe maintained her form at the 2023 X Games in Ventura, California, winning the women’s street event – making her the youngest women’s street gold medallist in X Games history.

In October 2023, Chloe achieved what she describes as the highlight of her career – “my first win in my home country” – when she won the Street League Skateboarding Championship Tour event in Sydney. It was her second consecutive win, after claiming the previous event in Tokyo.

Coming into her final run, Chloe needed 7.5 for first place but scored an incredible 9.0 with a 50-50 kickflip on the round rail, the highest-scored trick of the six finalists.

“I am so excited, two in a row, especially one in my home country,” she said afterwards. “I am so speechless, I am so stoked I won.”

Chloe’s father Luke, who played 131 games for Cronulla Sharks and 22 games for Wests Tigers as a winger, is by her side on most of her overseas trips and is acutely aware of the pitfalls of international stardom at such a young age.

“We’re obviously very mindful of her growing up and want her to enjoy being a kid and not put too much pressure on her, or her put too much pressure on herself,” he said. “It’s something we constantly remind her of.

“At this stage, she’s having the time of her life and she enjoys it. Sometimes it’s fun and other times, you’ve got to put your head down, whether it’s practice or school. But hard work and dedication have led to good things for her over the past 12 months.”

In the semi-finals of a World Skateboarding Tour event in Dubai in early 2024, Chloe produced a career-best score of 93.49, the highest-ever score by a female skater.

She set her course for Paris with a strong performance in an Olympic qualifying series event in Budapest in June 2024.