Australian Skateboarding Gold Medalist Just Earned Herself A Pet Duck

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I don't think there's anything more motivating in sports than an Olympic gold medal, but sometimes you need a little extra motivation, and that was the case for one 14-year-old skateboarding phenom from Australia.

Thanks to her parent's extra incentive to succeed at the Paris Games, Arisa Trew now has herself an Olympic gold medal in the women's skateboarding park final and a brand new pet duck.

According to Australia's ABC News, Trew became the youngest Australian athlete to win a medal at just 14 years and 86 days old. Skateboarding is a young woman's game because joining her on the podium was Japan's Cocona Hiraki who won silver and the United Kingdom's Sky Brown who took Bronze. 

Hiraki and Brown are 15 and 16 respectively.

Arisa Trew of Team Australia became her nation's youngest gold medalist after winning the women's skateboarding park final. (Photo by Xavier Laine/Getty Images)

Anyway, on Wednesday after her win, Trew talked about how the gold medal win also earned her a new feathered friend.

"My parents promised me if I won the gold medal I could get a pet duck," she said. 

I love this. It reminds me of when I was a kid. I was a picky eater, and I remember my parents offering to buy me a Sega Dreamcast if I tried new foods. I didn't take that offer because, in addition to being a picky eater, I was also incredibly stupid.

Ducks sound like a pretty good pet (they also sound delicious. I'm not a picky eater anymore and Peking duck is dynamite), and Trew explained that she wasn't allowed to get a cat or dog because of how much she traveled; which is commendably responsible reason to not get a pet.

"My parents wouldn't let me get a dog or a cat because we are traveling so much right now but I feel like a duck might be a little bit easier. I don't know I really wanted a duck," she said.

She also said that she plans to "get a little pool thing for it," which I'm sure the duck will appreciate. I'm sure it would also appreciate some form of dingo protection.

So, if you want your kid to be a gold medalist before they can drive, maybe a pet duck is the incentive they need to spend all day at the skatepark?

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Matt is a University of Central Florida graduate and a long-suffering Philadelphia Flyers fan living in Orlando, Florida. He can usually be heard playing guitar, shoe-horning obscure quotes from The Simpsons into conversations, or giving dissertations to captive audiences on why Iron Maiden is the greatest band of all time.