WST Dubai Park started with 108 Men and 67 Women registered from 39 countries and saw successive daily cuts down to 16 Semi-finalists in each division.

With perfect unbroken sunshine and the wind from earlier in the week having largely died down, all the external elements have decided to play ball- which is never a given.

Semi-finals saw the first 90+ scores of the contest so far, posted first by the mightily impressive World Champion Gavin Bottger on his first run, and then two separate ones by the superb emerging American Tate Carew, who’s vocal Mum almost made him die of embarrassment when the scores came in.

Olympic gold medallist Keegan Palmer was forced out by a practice injury for the second time on the Tour just as happened in Argentina last year, and Australia’s Keefer Wilson managed to stick a kickflip 540 at the 3rd time of asking just to be denied a full run with a slam as the clock ran down.

Crowd favourite Pedro Barros wowed the crowd with an improvised double grab on a massive flip but couldn’t tame his wildness to finish a full run.

In the women’s division, Japan’s Hinano Kusaki, ranked 2nd going into the event, barely squeaked into the semi-finals in 16th place and then retired hurt during practice.

Doing enough to secure her final spot with a barrage of liptricks was the charismatic American Bryce Wettstein, who has enough contest experience to know when to push the envelope and her second run cleared the 80-point threshold which became the border between success and failure.

Australia sees not one but two Trews through to the last 8, with 13-year-old Arisa making her second WST final courtesy of insane inverted 540s and fakie 360s on the volcano, and the unrelated 15-year-old Ruby coasting through from her first run which featured back-to-back inverts and a deep-end back smith like a pro.

Biggest story of the women’s semi-finals however has been the rocket ride of 10th-ranked Spanish newcomer Naia Laso, who qualified comfortably in first place heading into just her second final of the Tour and who has improved with every result along the way so far. Will she upset the unshakeable Japanese World Champion Kokona Hiraki’s domination thus far?

With Jagger Eaton electing not to enter in the Men’s division and Britain’s Sky Brown attempting to qualify for Paris in Surfing this weekend instead, this is shaping up to be one of the most open Park finals of the WST to date!