Yahoo Finance Skateboarder Bryce Wettstein Says Being on Team USA with Best Friend Brighton Zeuner Is 'Surreal'
Courtesy Bryce Wettstein Bryce Wettstein
Bryce Wettstein is about to be part of Olympic history — and her best friend is going to join her.
The Team USA skateboarder, who is competing at the Tokyo Games as skateboarding makes its debut as an Olympic sport, grew up in California with Brighton Zeuner. The pair were actually hanging out at Wettstein's home when she caught up with PEOPLE earlier this month.
"We grew up together and I think that sometimes the most beautiful part is like, you're doing something that you've loved for so long with someone you loved for so long, so love never stops conversion. It's incredible," Wettstein, 16, told PEOPLE.
Wettstein initially got into skateboarding as a young girl and snagged her first X Games medal just a few weeks ago. She'll compete in the women's skateboard park in Tokyo. Zeuner, 17, will also participate in the women's park.
RELATED: Team USA's Jagger Eaton Wins First Skateboarding Bronze Medal in Olympic History
"It's probably the most ideal, surreal thing in the whole world because who would have ever thought that somebody that you met one day playing Polly Pocket would someday be a part of your journey?" Wettstein, who also enjoys playing volleyball and is a talented songwriter, told PEOPLE of Zeuner. "We always need somebody that we love right next to us, because that just reinforces who we are. It's like forever, we'll always have each other and it's eternal. Skateboarding makes that eternal too."
Wettstein is thrilled skateboarding is finally getting a place in the Olympics, and especially that women will get to showcase the sport's inclusivity. She said that "skateboarding is one of those things that no matter what gender you are, no matter who you are, no matter what your identifications are, everything in you can always be implemented to skateboarding."
And she's grateful for her partner Core Hydration, the purified water company that's helped make her journey to Tokyo a reality.
"I think that having them by my side is like sort of having a bit of the universe and the Earth by my side too," she said, noting that water intake is "critical" to her performance because "whatever we're inputting is going to have a similar output."
RELATED: Skateboarder Brighton Zeuner, 16, Says She's Focused on 'Still Being a Kid' in Olympics Run-Up
Wettstein admittedly gets nervous to compete, and will especially miss having her usual travel companions, her mom and her sister, with her in Japan as foreign spectators are barred due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Still, the chance to compete, "means more than everything."
"I feel like throughout my whole life, everything is a contribution to where I can gratefully be right now because I feel like there wasn't one person or one thing that can be excluded from what this means to me," she said.
To learn more about Team USA, visit TeamUSA.org. Watch the Tokyo Olympics now on NBC.
