Girl Power and Brand Power: Postfeminist Sensibility in News Coverage of Tokyo's Girl "Prodigy" Skateboarders.

This article analyzes English-language news media coverage of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic women's skateboarding competition, focusing on how the exceptional youth of the medallists was celebrated through a postfeminist lens that emphasized individual empowerment, marketability, and girl power narratives. The coverage framed these young athletes as prodigies and entrepreneurial figures, highlighting their age and visibility while largely overlooking the physical labor involved in their athletic achievements and broader structural inequalities affecting women and girl athletes in skateboarding. It also notes the tension between portraying these girl skaters as empowered and invincible while simultaneously emphasizing their vulnerability as children, reflecting contradictions inherent in postfeminist media sensibilities. The study calls for further research into how media representations of elite girl athletes navigate gender and age, and how such narratives may obscure ongoing challenges within women's sports.