What does it mean to represent skateboarding’s biggest nation just as the biggest roadshow in the world makes a spiritual return to skating’s heartland? What will no doubt be the biggest skateboarding contests of all time are now just two summers away in LA28.
As the World Skateboarding Tour winds its way towards California, we talk to Jagger Eaton, Paige Heyn and Julian Agliardi about the responsibilities and strategies that come with aiming to represent the USA in the USA- and their roadmaps to get there!
This installment of deep-dives is of particular significance because it is the first time a skateboarding event has ever hit Japan’s southern island of Kitakyushu so it was an all-new experience for skateboarders and fans alike. Jump right in for A Closer Look at Japan’s newest skateboarding destination and event!
Australian skater and one of a kind Liv Lovelace joins the World Skate media team at the WST World Cup Kytakyushu, trying out a vintage camcorder to film Chloe Covell, Momoji Nishiya, Coco Yoshizawa & more.
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.
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.
