Under the watchful eyes of skateboarding grandmaster Tony Hawk – and Snoop Dogg – Australia’s Keegan Palmer confirmed his domination of the Olympic park event after securing back-to-back gold medals in central Paris.

The 21-year-old overcame knee injuries in the lead-up to the Games and ferocious competition from American Tom Schaar to secure a second Olympic title, defending the gold he won in Tokyo as a teenager.

The medal is the second gold of the Games for Australia from the four skateboarding events on the programme, after Arisa Trew won gold in the women’s park on Tuesday. Seventeen-year-old Keefer Wilson finished in eighth place behind Palmer after failing to complete a run in the final.

Immediately afterwards, Palmer said winning a gold medal probably wouldn’t sink in until later that night. “Dude, I can’t even believe it, bro, I literally, like, I’m speechless,” he told Channel Nine.

Palmer’s winning run was his first in the final, which scored 93.11 and set an early benchmark that nobody could match, even as the field got close – the top five skaters all scored above 91, and were spread by just two points. But by his final run, Palmer already knew he had secured the gold.

“I really wanted to land my next two runs because I’ve been saving [tricks] and also wanting to do harder stuff, and I really wanted Tom to land that last run to push me to be able to do my next run even better,” he said. “But I’m really happy I got my first run down and I was able to do it [win gold] again.”

The final started slowly, after six skaters stacked on their first run. It left only Schaar and Keegan to complete their allotted 45 seconds. Schaar posted a 90.11 immediately before Palmer, but the Australian bettered him, celebrating with his rivals with hugs and high fives.

World No 1 Tate Carew put together a spectacular run on his second go-round, and the crowd waited anxiously for the scores, but even that was only 91.17. And Schaar immediately followed with what seemed like another combination that would test Palmer, but again the judges only scored it a 92.23.

The world’s best skaters performed in their third runs, with Brazilian Augusto Akio pushing himself into the medal positions. And Schaar looked set to better the Australian’s score until he came off in his run with seconds to go, handing the gold to the Australian.

Palmer said the final played out in his favour. “I got really lucky though, by everyone falling off on their last two runs, but I had something prepared if need be,” he said. “I don’t know dude, I’m speechless though, I just can’t believe it bro, everyone’s yelling at me. I’m just happy. Come on, Australia, let’s do this.”

Hawk was on hand to formal open the evening’s competition, and said afterwards Palmer impressed him. “We kind of knew going into it that it would be between him and Tom, and they both did their best,” he said.

“What I like about him is that he is taking the most technical vert [ramp] moves and doing them in this [park] setting, because I feel like vert is really missing from these games from as a discipline.”

Palmer said Hawk was the “Goat of skateboarding, 100%” and it was an honour to receive his praise. “We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Tony. Some of my tricks on my run Tony invented. We wouldn’t have events in skateboarding like this, if Tony never did that 900 back in the day, and he just exploded skateboarding for us.”

Earlier, Palmer had built his form through the preliminaries, beating his previous best on each of his runs and eventually posting a 93.78 – the highest score recorded all day. That gave him the advantage of going last in the evening.

Palmer’s second run was promising, before a stack halfway through. And his third one was a celebration, after he had already secured the gold, as thousands of fans – as well as VIPs like Hawk and NBA star Devin Booker – showed their appreciation for the Australian’s efforts.

Palmer described himself and Trew – who secured gold on Tuesday – as “the king and queen of skateboarding park right now”. But he said he would have to improve to “keep up with all these kids that are coming through” and reach his goal of competing at his home Olympics in Brisbane in 2032.