The event will be the last chance for skaters to accrue points towards their Olympic World Skate Ranking (OWSR) before a cut is made – using those rankings – ahead of the second phase of qualification, the Olympic Qualifying Series (OQS). The OQS is a two-part competition series taking place in Shanghai (16-19 May) and Budapest (20-23 June) and will be the settings to determine the final fields for Paris 2024.
WST DUBAI 2024 PARK FINALS
The stage-setting for the women’s final couldn’t have been tee’d up any better: all 8 skaters made their first runs which also saw the first female 90+ score of the entire contest, with Japan’s Kokona Hiraki logging the first of two back-to-back 91 scores in her opener. Second runs took on a different complexion with five runs aborted by slams until first place qualifier Naia Laso fulfilled her destiny with the run of a lifetime which included no less than three 360 variations and a kickflip indy finisher which everybody knew was the likely winning run even before the 93 score came in.
For the Men’s division it would prove to be an Iberian repeat as Danny Leon won outright in his first WST final with his first run and only the second run of the contest itself which scored the only 90+ score in his division. In second came the flawless Gavin Bottger who made all three of his runs perfectly and as such being the only skater in either final to do so while in third came Rune Glifberg’s 16-year-old Danish protege Viktor Solmunde who is already better than his mentor was at his age, and was the fastest skateboarder in the park by far.