So much talent and all the women pushing hard for that podium finish in women’s street. Watch until the end - because things take a huge twist!
Watch the eight women who made the Women’s Park Finals in Dubai - this event was something to see!
We are not going to give you the podium info - you’ll have to watch and see for yourself!!
Image Via World Skate
We were up at 3:30 AM PT today to watch the women’s semi-finals and these ladies did not disappoint. Some seriously rad skating went down. We can only imagine what they will bring for tomorrows finals!
Sunday, March 3rd Women’s Park Finals Finals
9AM ET / 6AM PT
You can watch it all go down on World Skate TV, Olympic Channel, Red Bull TV
Image via World Skate
Image via World Skate
Three American women made it through to the semi -finals - veteran skaters, Minna Stess, Jordyn Barratt and Bryce Wettstein. Japan is pushing hard, Spain is in the mix as well, France and Brazil have one skater each, Australia has Ruby Trew, Arisa Trew and and Coco Crafter, and Lola Tambling makes up the lone spot for GB (since Sky Brown is not competing due to pursuing her qualification in Puerto Rico for surfing in the Olympics) - this is a semi-final that we have not seen in the past! I know that we will be on the edge of our seats for this one!
Women’s Park Semi-Finals:
Saturday, MARCH 2nd
6:20AM ET
3:20AM PT - you’ll be getting up early for this one!!
You can watch it all go down on World Skate TV, Olympic Channel, Red Bull TV
Image via World Skate
That Women’s Open was intense - so many skaters throwing down great runs (we were able to see parts of it via parents live streams on Instagram and some replays from World Skate) But the filed had to be narrowed down and this is how it went.
Quarter Finals happen Friday in Dubai (which is Thursday evening in the USA) - and again this section of the comp is NOT on a live stream (ARGH!).
The women below who made the top 29 in the Open Qualifiers will join pre-seeds: Minna Stess (USA), Hinano Kusaki (JPN), Kokona Hiraki (JPN)
It should be a great comp and we will be updating who makes it to the semi-finals and how to watch that event LIVE, tomorrow!
The top 29 advanced to the quarter-finals
Yosozumi Sakura (JPN) - 82.00
Ruby Lilley (USA) - 77.50
Hasegawa Mizuho (JPN) - 76.65
Isadora Pacheco (BRA) - 74.13
Arisa Trew (AUS) - 74.00
Naia Laso (ESP) - 73.75
Bryce Wettstein (USA) - 73.33
Li Yujuan (CHN) - 72.26
Aaliyah Wilson (AUS) - 70.00
Ruby Trew (AUS) - 69.00
Kaihara Asahi (JPN) - 67.25
Lilly Strachan (GBR) - 67.00
Jordyn Barratt (USA) - 66.90
Lola Tambling (GBR) - 66.85
Nakamura Kisa (JPN) - 66.80
Julia Benedetti (ESP) - 66.60
Sugawara Mei (JPN) - 66.46
Emilie Alexandre (FRA) - 66.32
Fernanda Tonissi (BRA) - 66.07
Madeleine Larcheron (FRA) - 65.80
Lillian Erickson (USA) - 65.60
Lilly Stoephasius (GER) - 65.55
Grace Marhoefer (USA) - 65.50
Heili Sirvio (FIN) - 65.40
Coco Crafter (AUS) - 65.10
Lin Yi-fan (TPE) - 58.63
Poppy Starr (AUS) - 56.00
Helena Laurino (BRA) - 49.00
Cona Suganami (USA) - 46.47
Filmed in 2023 this is Francesca Shuda with her first full part dedicated to Street Skating in Philadelphia and the surrounding areas.
This part also welcomes Francesca Shuda to the Kinetic Skateboarding Team.
From Kinetic Skateboarding: "We had the opportunity to have Francesca become a part of Kinetic's shop team, even though it feels like she had always been a part of the crew! This girl has put in time, work and effort since showing up a couple of years ago at a Wilmington Skate Birds meetup. Since then she's gone on to be sponsored by Meow Skateboards and 187 Killer Pads. Aside from her just ripping it up whether in the park, streets or comps, she also is just a very kind and sweet person, and is always a friendly face at the park from Philly to Delaware and everywhere in between. As much as she wants to succeed, she wants others to succeed right alongside with her. Congratulations Francesca!! You deserve it."
Filmed & Edited by Jimmy Shuda. Animation by Calista Tussey. Thumbnail photo by Justin Mondschein.
Image via World Skate SB
Welcome to Dubai!
The upcoming Park Pro Tour Stop will be from February 25th to March. 3rd. Right after that will be the Street Pro Tour Stop from March 3 through March 10th . Both of these competitions will take place at the brand new skatepark located in the area of Dubai Harbor.
Over 500 skateboarders are expected to be in Dubai to compete at this event and the pressure is on. This event determines who will move on to eventually qualify for the Paris Olympics this summer.
How to watch WST Dubai Park 2024 live on Olympics.com
Livestream coverage of WST Dubai Park 2024 will be available to watch worldwide on Olympic Channel via Olympics.com and will begin with the semi-finals on Saturday 2 March and include the finals on Sunday 3 March.
Rankings and Schedule Info below via Olympics.com
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 44 highest-placed eligible athletes per gender in the OWSR after Dubai will be invited to the OQS respecting the following principles:
No more than six athletes per country per gender per event (respecting the order of the OWSR)
At least one highest-placed athlete from each continent for the representation of all continents
At least one highest-placed athlete who is a national of the Olympic Games 2024 host country France
At least one highest-placed eligible athlete who is a national of the OQS host country, (People’s Republic of China and Hungary)
At least one Universality places eligible athletes
The stakes, therefore, going into Dubai are high with spots in the next stage of qualification on the line.
USA’s Minna Stess is pre-seeded and ranked #1 in the USA - Image via World Skate SB
WOMEN’S - PRE-SEEDED SKATERS:
The top five seeded skaters in the OWSR will skip the qualifiers and join the contest in the quarter-final phase.
Hiraki Cocona (JPN)
Kusaki Hinano (JPN)
Sky Brown (GBR) - not competing
Raicca Ventura (BRA)
Minna Stess (USA)
WOMEN’S SCHEDULE
Sunday 25 February
Women’s practice
Monday 26 February
Women’s practice
Tuesday 27 February
Women’s practice
Pre-seeded women’s practice
Wednesday 28th February
Women’s Open QualifierPre-seeded women’s practice
Thursday 29th February
Pre-seeded women’s practice
Friday 1 March
Women’s Quarter-final practices
Women’s Quarter-final
Saturday 2 March
Women’s Semi-final practices
Women’s Semi-final - LIVE!!!
Sunday 3 March
Women’s Final practice
Women’s Final. - LIVE!!!
Anna with her new quiver of Welcome Skateboards
We are excited to share the news with you that Girl is NOT a 4 Letter Word team rider Anna Shea is now on flow for Welcome Skateboards!
Photo of Anna ~ Sev Boosinger
Nine year old Anna Shea has been tearing up the Nor Cal (and So Cal) scene for a couple years now and at Santa Cruz’s 50th Anniversary party she caught the eye of Welcome Pro and skateboarding icon, Nora Vasconcellos, who kept her eye on Anna in the months to follow and eventually brought her onto Welcome Flow.
Anna loves to skate everything from a great skatepark to an extreme DIY spot, which makes her a versatile skater and fun to watch!
Big Congrats Anna!!
Grab the March issue of Thrasher while you can - Elissa Steamer (aka The Goat of women’s street skating) is on the cover. You don’t want to miss this!
Most people in skateboarding are aware of this collab deck, but hearing Chloe talk about it on the Jimmy Fallon Show was the best! The “Chloe” board was designed by Jason Dill, who started the skateboard brand F---ing Awesome.
"They do these boards where they put all the pro skaters' school photos on them and he saw my high school portrait and he was like, 'Oh my God it's amazing, can we put it on a skateboard?' I was like, 'I'm not a pro skater but I'm pro skaters, so yes,' " laughed Sevigny, adding that she gave her "blessing" for her photo to be used.
This board sold out in minutes - so good luck getting your hands on one - your best bet is Ebay.!
We are BIG fans of TOGETHXR and they have just released a rad video on one of our favorite street skaters, Chloe Covell.
Chloe Covell just gets better with age. The 13 year old made X Games history as the youngest women’s street gold medalist earlier this year. Prior to that, she became the youngest skater with two podium finishes in competition history. Now she looks ahead to represent her country of Australia at the Paris Olympics and continue her impressive run. Already with sponsors from Nike SB and Oakley, TOGETHXR caught up with one of the hottest street skater in the world.
A "relationship" that began in 2019 and has always been filled with growth and unique moments is now summarized in the most coveted video part.
Filmed and edited by Ivan Vicente, this video part of Rafaela is a moment of dedication and mutual respect... In the end, it is said that they only celebrate relationships.
Team riders Mazel Alegado and Brooke Benton win their divisions at CASL National Championships
What a fun weekend! CASL National Championships were this weekend, and they even had a live stream. Four of our Girl is NOT a 4 Letter Word team riders competed this weekend and had a blast!
Team rider Mazel Alegado is the new CASL National Champion for Girls Open Advanced Vert and Bowl.
Team Rider Brooke Benton is the new CASL National Champion for Girls Street.
Congratulations to Brooke, Mazel, Elle Warne, and Anna Shea for being invited to compete and for putting together and executing some great runs!
Make sure you grab the February 2024 Issue of THRASHER Magazine, because Girl is NOT a 4 Letter Word team rider, nine-year-old Anna Shea, has a quarter page photo in it. Anna is blasting a backside air in Newark, CA. The rad image was taken by Busenhart.
Congrats Anna!!
We love seeing mainstream luxury brands like Golden Goose support female skateboarders. Take a trip to China in the latest episode and meet skater Zhang Xin who shares her incredible story of discovery, transformation, and resilience.
Zhang Xin is a Chinese skateboarder. She has competed in women's park events at several World Skateboarding Championships, finishing 19th in 2018 and 25th in 2019. Zhang placed fifteenth in the preliminary round of the women's park event at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
Watch to see what she is up to next!
We are starting 2024 off with a BANG and would like to introduce you to our newest team rider, Emma Sue Cloudt from Texas!
Emma Sue is eight years old and a shredder - she skates bowl, vert and street and loves to push herself to learn new tricks. Living in a small town, she mainly skates with the boys and has no fear. We are excited to get the team together to skate with her when she comes out to California this year - hopefully to compete in Exposure Skate in November.
In the meantime, make sure you follow Emma Sue on Instagram and check out her team bio page HERE.
Welcome to the team Emma Sue!
Staying in tonight? Nursing a hangover on New Years Day?
Sit back and enjoy these two superstars spill the beans on hometown fame, fangirl moments, stair records, bucket lists, wild DMs and much more.
Atita Verghese is India’s foremost female skater. She discovered skateboard culture through the country’s Holystoked crew who built India’s first DIY skatepark in Bangalore. As soon as she set foot on a board, her life changed forever- and she has never looked back.
In 2014, Atita founded Girl Skate India, an NGO which encourages young women to follow her path into the great big world of skateboarding for themselves.
Atita is an inspiration to women worldwide- but especially in India, a nation of a billion souls where skating is still in its infancy. Having learned how to mix concrete and shape transitions with the Holystoked collective, she has worked on the majority of skatepark builds throughout her home country to this day.
Along the way, skateboarding has seen her feature in many adverts, a TED talk, landed her roles in movies and even a cameo appearance in the Netflix show Skater Girl.
In a society where opportunities for girls to be free of social constraints and have fun are thin on the ground, Atita does more than just provide boards, pads or lessons- she has created a one-woman movement.
That has to be something worth checking out.
Maya Kenny competing in Rome at the Park World Championships - Photo Lauren Brooke
This weekend skateboarders involved in competing at Olympic Park Qualifiers got a bit of a rude awakening. It was quietly announced that World Skate had changed the Olympic Park Qualifiers from the beginning of January to almost the end of February and the location was changed from Sharjah to Dubai.
Image via World Skate
You might be thinking “we are in November, so that’s not too bad…” but a lot of athletes had already purchased their flights for the qualifier, lined up their hotels or airbnb’s and arranged their schedules accordingly.
And this does not even include, or address, the park skaters that already flew in and are currently in Sharjah practicing at the park where the event was supposed to be held.
Sharjah is fairly close to Dubai (about a 20 to 30 minute drive by car) so you may also be thinking “they can just go practice at the other park!”. The issue is what park? The parks in Dubai are not set up for this style of Park Qualifier. Kite Beach Skatepark (also known as X Dubai) is the largest and nicest of the bunch. it has a bowl, a pool, rails, ledges, quarter pipes, and hubbas, but it is not built like a “park” that is used in Olympic qualifiers.
So, the question people have is; Is a new park being built to be ready in time to the next qualifier? Most likely. Is this a way to keep some skaters from having extra practice time prior to comps? Maybe. The X Games does it. Vans Park Series used to do it as well, so it is not unheard of. And yes, when the Olympics roll around it will be at a park specifically built for the Olympic venue and practice will be regulated so everyone has a fair shot.
Check out California Skateparks instagram to see if you see anything soon about them building a park in Dubai - that may be the most information we get at this early date. They are known to rally and work fast so maybe this is wha tis happening - too soon to tell though.
But back to this February Park Qualifier.
In case you didn’t know, another interesting thing about Park Qualifiers - they do not run on a normal calendar year schedule - such as, January to December for the “season”. We just had the World Championships in October in Rome so most people assume that this would be the end of the “season”. NO. We have one more comp left in the “season” and that will now be Dubai. So, all skaters that have been competing so far, are invited.
Image via World Skate
Then in May there is a qualifier in Shanghai and then another in Budapest in June - these two are only for the top 44 skaters and they lead up to who eventually goes to the Paris Olympics in July.
WHEW! We know it’s confusing, but we hope we have helped shed some light on some of the craziness!