At 66, Judi Oyama would be considered a senior citizen by Japan’s official standards, but nothing about her life fits that description.
Instead of slowing down, she’s speeding up. In Japan, the country of her ancestry, where grace and restraint outrank adrenaline, most women her age likely left such thrills behind long ago. But not Oyama. A Skateboarding Hall of Fame inductee and a Guinness World Record holder as the world’s oldest competitive female skateboarder, she’s proof that the joy of sports doesn’t retire.
Born in California, Oyama grew up with an older sibling, far from the culture that shaped her grandparents — her father’s side of the family from Wakayama Prefecture and her mother’s from Kagoshima Prefecture. Her parents, she says, were part of a generation of Japanese Americans who had grown disconnected from their own history.
“I have always wanted to go to Japan. It's on my bucket list,” Oyama told The Japan Times from her Santa Cruz home, where a halfpipe sits in the backyard.
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