One of the things which never fails to impress at international skate contests is when the Brazilians turn up en-masse and you realise what they have been up to all day, every day, down there. American pro’s used to dread the arrival of the Brazilians in competitive skateboarding back in the 1990’s: they move as a unit, they don’t care who your sponsors are, and they feed off the energy of the crowd in away which only a couple of individual others do.

All photos: Kenji Haruta

Since they have their own domestic events circuit, it is only when they show up outside of Brazil that you go ‘O-K…’- and so it was here in Rome. It was fantastic to see Italo Penarrubia and Rony Gomes holding it down against the young breed coming through during qualifiers yesterday, and although Italo didn’t make the cut Rony made today’s finals in which Brazil held seven of sixteen possible finalist spots, close to double the nearest nation (USA with four).

Rony's last Best Trick was a backside 360 varial flip indy, over a ten-foot channel. Rrrright.

Speaking of young upstarts: you know the Japanese kid you’ve seen on Instagram spinning 900’s like a whirling dervish?

Well- turns out there are two of them- and they were both here in Rome. Ao Nishikawa and Ema Kawakami are the two names guaranteed to be giving the competition nightmares for a generation to come, and that is not event mentioning Soya Inomata, who at the grand old age of 14, is a comparative veteran and himself a complete Vert skateboarder already. As one wag here observed, Japan has its own Vertical Ginwoo’s all wound up and ready to go. Soya is also a hype man for the crowd and wowed them with a varial flip 540 in his Best trick section. He had progressed to the finals as the sole Japanese representative in Men’s division, joining three Brazilians and four Americans in what is probably a fair representation of what the lie of the land is in Vert skating globally today. Women’s was a slightly more international affair with three Brazilians, three Australians, two Japanese and one German as the sole European representative here today. Given that Vert ramps can be built indoors anywhere in the world, the fact that Lilly Stoephasius is the only European in the finals tells a story of where that continent could perhaps play catch-up in the vertical arena. She did herself and the continent proud by coming in a solid fourth.

How high was the standard? Well, if I tell you that yesterday New Zealand’s CJ Hawker made three 540’s, two flip tricks and a couple of varials in a thirty-second run and still didn’t make his cut, then you have an idea of how far things have come in the last few years.

Today in the finals we saw 900’s in runs becoming an actual thing.

That was a trick which once had people carried off shoulder-high in a conga line, and now is becoming frighteningly close to a staple. How’s that for progression?

On the subject of progression: while you may not be surprised by Australia’s Arisa Trew becoming the 2024 Women’s Vert World Champion- she is the Paris Park gold medallist after all- it was not a foregone conclusion. In fact she was trailing Japanese blaster Mizuho Hasegawa coming out of the Run section and needed a switch McTwist (read that back) to take top spot. She nearly made a 720, too. Fantastic. Rounding out the Women’s Vert podium was Mizuho’s Japanese compatriot Asahi Kaihara, who was both solid and inventive. Women’s vertical skateboarding is really something to behold these days. As Renton Millar observed on the mic: we’re going to where we’ve never been before. He’s not wrong.

Men’s Finals took place straight after Women’s, and during a glorious Roman sunset. We have waxed lyrical about Rome as a location for events before, but the light falls in the evening here in a particularly gorgeous way which you’d be hard pressed to find anywhere else in the world.

It was against this backdrop a battle royale went down, which saw Gui Khury electrify from the get-go right down to his final Best Trick attempt which was-I kid you not- a kickflip 900. A deserved first place and a talent that needs to be seen to believed, genuinely. Just behind him was his imaginative and skate-smart countryman Augusto Akio, who despite not having those telephone-number rotations in his arsenal can do things nobody else can, like frontside feeblegrind to pop out over a 10-foot channel- and nearly did a frontside nosegrind revert off the floating coping 16 feet off the ground. Balance like a cat, that fellow has.

In third came the rootsy Collin Graham, who qualified in 8th but boxed clever with a great opening run and then made an Elguerial over that chasm of a channel during Best Trick, which apart from talent, takes an unbelievable amount of commitment. Great to see at this level.

A wild, wild show for all in attendance- as well as for our global broadcast audience online.

If there is a better spectacle than Vert skateboarding overlooking Rome, then I personally can’t think of what that might be, right now. Congratulations to our new World Champions and thank you to all 60 skateboarders and all the fans who made this event so magic.

The World Skate Games 2024 continues: next up, the WST Street World Championships in just seven short days’ time!