With so much to cover from today’s action, we will forego the padding preamble you have come to expect and not read:

Women’s qualifiers brought with it the delight that only women’s skateboarding really does- 3rd place Nanami Onishi was pumping the air mid- run after stoking herself out on individual makes in a way which Bastien Salabanzi would have thought frankly ostentatious and was all the more wonderful for it.

Among the standouts of the Brazilian women’s new wave were the equally-excellent Isabelly Avila and the crisp-popping Maria Souza, both of whom have future-star potential (isn’t it weird to be looking into next Rayssa’s already?)

Lying just outside the cut on her WST debut but looking unbelievably assured for her first outing was Spain’s Ivet Terol Mendez, who nearly made her first full run and absolutely did with her second. Staying with plucky first showings, Italian homegirl Gaia Urbinati showed immense character by coming back from a tearfully unsuccessful first run to boss her second. China’s Chenxi Cui wow’ed with the only grab of the day- a kickflip melon which is both unorthodox and almost too difficult to rick in a contest run, but do it she did, twice.

Leaving aside Coco Yoshizawa’s Olympic heroics, it seems that the likely podium candidates on paper at this stage would be in no particular order Chloe Covell (qualified first), Rayssa Leal (who else, but skating with a strapped knee), Momiji Nishiya (scraped the cut, but so gangster you can never write her off) and Yumeka Oda, who has the trick bag to come from behind and storm it.

If that prediction provides incentive for the rest of the pack to make me look stupid, so much the better.

Over on the masculine side of things, the two people most people would love to see take home the giant cheque are Gio Vianna and Vincent Milou, both of whom look tantalisingly close to doing it for the first time. Making his debut for Japan was Daiki Ikeda, part of the ruling Ikeda clan (his brother Daisuke is also next-level) who hardflipped the distance between two bus stops, much to the crowd’s delight.

Squeaking into the cut was 16th place Brazilian journeyman Ivan Monteiro, who is capable of greatness but is also mindful of a badly broken arm. It will be interesting to see how his semifinal goes against better-established names.

Biggest ‘who-dat’ of the event so far though has to go to South Korea’s Juni Kang, who seems to have arrived as a complete skateboarder from nowhere.

It is a very difficult thing to make a varial heelflip pop and fold without cropdusting it 2 inches off the ground. Not only did Juni do that higher than most could ollie on his first run, he laserflipped (which is essentially the same trick but with another 180 degrees of lateral rotation) in run two. If you can make the Japanese nervous, you must be doing something right.

Tomorrow is a new day: bring it on!