Chloe Covell (Photo World Skate)
Two of the fastest skateboarders in the women’s division quarter-finals at the World Skateboarding Tour in Kitakyushu were 13-year old Mei Ozeki and 15-year old Nanami Onishi, both of whom were absolutely flying around the course with verve and energy.
The big shock of women’s quarterfinals, however, was that World number one and Paris Olympic gold medallist Coco Yoshizawa failed to make the cut into semifinals by 0.03 of a point despite having a full second run.
Liz Akama already made the cut with her first (incomplete) run but missed completing her second by the buzzer and will have to pay close attention to her time management if she is to progress beyond semis.
Men’s quarterfinals were opened by a powerful run from Australia’s Daniel Woolley, younger brother of WST Park skater Kieran.
France’s Joseph Garbaccio managed to complete his second run with a huge nosebluntslide on the wooden out-ledge but fellow Europeans Simon Gerber, Remco Erkeland, Pacal Teixeira and Jonas Larsen were less lucky and unable to complete full runs.
Australian veteran Tommy Fynn was a crowd favorite but could not land the 360 kickflip to noseslide on the yellow hubba in either run.
Incredibly, Nyjah Huston is out at quarterfinals stage because the standard is now so high that it basically comes down to can you land your last mega-trick- and, needing to do so on his second run, he could not.
Going through to the next round, however was Brazil’s Tour newcomer Wallace Gabriel, who had a superb first run capped off with a switch backside lipslide to power into tomorrow’s semis.
Doing likewise is Japan’s Yukito Aoki, who looks like he has broken his run of bad luck for now (he last made it to finals at WST Dubai back in March 2024).
That same luck was not in for USA’s Braden Hoban, who somehow managed to fall off his last trick as he was rolling away on what was an otherwise perfect run that would have easily taken him into the next round.
The long day came to an incredible crescendo with Ginwoo Onodera and Toa Sasaki crashing out while Great Britain’s Joe Hinson made it into only his second semifinals of the WST by just one point.
