Local hero Sora Shirai comes from behind to snatch victory in Men’s Street, while compatriot Ibuki Matsumoto sheds tears upon winning her first tour stop in front of home crowd at the World Skateboarding Tour in Kitakyushu.
Such was the standard of skateboarding that neither of Japan’s Olympic gold medallists Coco Yoshizawa and Yuto Horigome were even able to make it into Sunday’s finals.
While Japan were as expected the dominant nation in terms of finalists in both men’s and women’s divisions with a total of seven entrants overall, the nationality mix was more eclectic than elsewhere with two two Chinese skateboarders, two Koreans, two Brazilians, one Australian, one Argentinian and one Peruvian.
Among that number were Tour newcomer Wallace Gabriel from Brazil who was one of the jaw-dropping success stories of the week, and appearing in his first final Deivid Tuesta from Lima, who was identified as a prospect through World Skate’s Youth Athlete Development.
In the Women’s division, mightily-impressive Tour debutante Jiyul Shin from Korea blew minds when she joined first-time finalists Yuanling Zhu of China and Nanami Onishi of Japan in shaking up the established order within their field.
Remarkably, there were no American representation in the final sixteen at this time of asking, despite the USA being the birthplace of the activity.
With a shared prize purse of $200,000 divided evenly between the sexes there was intense competition for podium places for those vital World Skateboard Ranking points going into the 2026 season which will form an arrowhead toward the Los Angeles Olympic Games which are now just two summers away.
Japan dominating proceedings on their home turf by delivering a clean sweep of the men’s podium led by the apparently unbeatable maestro Sora Shirai ahead of countrymen Kairi Netsuke and Yukito Aoki- and also took top two places in women’s led by first-time winner Ibuki Matsumoto, who blew minds and 2023 World Champion Yumeka Oda in second.
Australia’s Chloe Covell rallied from a disappointing run section to claim third place- but the fact that she won in Rome last June shows just how quickly the standard is progressing in women’s skateboarding.
