Following on from yesterday’s injury updates we have some sunnier news in Men’s Park today. Back off the injury list for the second time on the Road To Paris was current Olympic champion Keegan Palmer, who- with the possible exception of Cory Juneau- can lay claim to being the most naturally talented skateboarder in Men’s Park. Skateboarding fans around the world will have their fingers crossed that his knee troubles are now in the past. In practice, he looked unbelievably sharp. Devastatingly so, even. Although he fluffed his last two runs here today, he did enough at the first time of asking to progress to the next round comfortably. With a strong early showing from the Spanish newcomers- and their support going head to head with the Brazilians as to who could make most noise- the atmosphere rose throughout the day as the temperatures soared alongside.

For Men’s Park there was not a single seat left available in the huge stands, which speaks to the level of interest in skateboarding here. Probably seventy percent of the crowd were under the age of sixteen, which bodes well for the future of skateboarding in China. While both the Brazilians, Australians and Americans impressed in numbers in the last heat of Men’s Park, special mention should be made of Australia’s Keefer Wilson who is quickly emerging into personal greatness. Remember the name.

Women’s Street was a tale of two halves. The first two heats seemed nervy with a lot of patchy performances, but in the latter two they all seemed to be having a lot more fun. Chenxi Cui got rattled in practice but recovered well enough to be leading at the end of the third heat as the bridgehead of a strong domestic showing, which saw 4 Chinese skaters in the top 8 before the Japanese rolled in for the fourth heat. The leaderboard shake-up was instant with a resurgentFuna Nakayama and a blonde-tipped Liz Akama barging into the leaderboard before Chloe Covell did her emphatic thing.

The atmosphere by this point was rowdy going on for riotous. Rayssa Leal’s blown first run- on a quarterpipe 50-50 of all things- cast a question mark over whether she would progress to the next phase. Like the total pro she already is, though, she did exactly enough to bump herself up out of the danger zone on run 2 and lives to fight another day. Yumeka Oda, however, was less fortunate and was the only Japanese skater in Heat 4 to miss the cut.

Based upon today’s showing we are in for a wild next couple of days on the skateboarding front.

Do join us, won’t you?