The first thing which is apparent upon arrival at 600- square-metre Spot Skatepark here in Rome’s waterfront Ostia neighbourhood is the contrast in Park layout from previous stops on the World Skateboarding Tour.
As opposed to Sharjah’s elongated, sausage-shaped footprint and Argentina’s more open-plan, jump box-centred configuration, Ostia’s park is more crucible-like, with no parallel facing walls. Features included in the pit are a super-wide loveseat, a central teardrop volcano- which, unlike Marseille, does not slope but instead is perfectly horizontal- a waterfall down into a three-walled deep end with pool coping (the lip resembles and opened staple), and- for the first time- a spine, which severely curtails sight-lines around the park and made for some hairy near-misses during practice. The significance of no facing walls means that Vert skaters cannot insert a familiar back-to-back trick section mid-run. This is a carver’s park, with whippy corner pockets- the only way to buy yourself some breathing space is to trace a time-sapping diagonal across the gap in front of the volcano.
This layout worked for some but not for others- Brazil’s Luigi Cini (who won in San Juan) went through in first position for the men, while Kokona Hiraki did likewise for women. They also posted the only two 90+ scores of the Semifinals. Falling just short of the rising cut (85 for men, 84.6 for women) were crowd favourites Steven Pineiro and Bryce Wettstein respectively. Grace Marhoefer was solid and consistent all week but couldn’t complete a full run in the semis, rolling off a frontside grind to end her chances.
Both Ruby and Arisa Trew threw down McTwists in their runs but didn’t progress. Promising newcomer Lily Erickson couldn’t hang on to Kickflip Indy at the end of her last two runs which would have been enough to progress. Sakura Yosozumi is coming back from knee injury and left it to her last run to qualify. The two most powerful women skaters were Brazils Raicca Ventura and Japans Hinano Kusaki who both qualified easily but Raicca did it with no 540’s in her runs. Hinano has melon 540’s on lock, every time.
Augusto Akio came 2nd in the 2022 World Championship, but again blew his first two runs and needed his third to post an 87 and progress. Tom Schaar went highest and fastest but couldn’t complete a run despite having travelled to practice here twice in advance of the contest. Yuro Nagahara has been super consistent all week but needed a Hail Mary last run to go through.
Super impressive Tate Carew is bluntsliding round the corner on pool coping and had a wild last run including tailgrab 540, but appeared hurt afterwards. Jagger Eaton had three full runs of 87 or above and is a master strategist. Local hero Alessandro Mazzara was outstanding in the quarterfinals but maybe the pressure of expectation from the Italian crowd proved too much. He donated his pads to the Uganda Skateboard Society afterwards. Pedro Barros is back in a big way, opening his runs blasting but ending them with switch brushstrokes we haven’t seen before. It will be interesting to see what he has in reserve for the finals. Keefer Wilson came back from a heavy slam in his second run to stick two 540s in his last one.
Be sure to join us live for the WST Park World Championship finals on World Skate TV and Olympics.com!