The first thing that hits you is the sheer scale of the operation: the World Skate Games are taking place at three locations across the Paraguayan capital of Asunción, with Park and Street skateboarding both taking place within the footprint of the Paraguayan Olympic Committee Park, which is pretty close to state-of-the-art as far as multi-sport venues go: BMX tracks, indoor velodromes, football pitches, aquatic centre, mini-stadia for sports like beach soccer and hockey, marquees for food villages, live music stages, golf course- everything. Foremost among the new additions to this sporting cornucopia is their brand-new Park skateboarding FOP, and Oh Boy is it a beast.

We will come to the context within, and rationale behind, Asuncion’s new skateboarding creation later this week- but for now let’s acknowledge that Paraguay have just dealt themselves into the international skateboarding destination game with an all-time build which could see them become a fixed star on the worldwide Park skateboarding circuit through delivering a performance space which reflects the direction of travel in terms progression within the international top flight.

In Women’s Open Qualifiers, two early standouts and certainly among the best-supported were 12-year-old Filipina Elizabeth Amador, absolutely tanking it around the space and one of the few to be able to clear the central jump box obstacle straight out of the gate thanks in no small part to favouring a roll-in over a drop-in- plus the fact she is running bigger than average wheels (they look like 58’s)- and a shorter wheelbase than most of the others.

Matching her mighty for mighty was Chile’s Ignacia ‘Iggy’ Munoz, who was herself sailing around the concrete waves with an abandon that made her stand out from the pack.

Two future stars there, have no doubt.

Although nobody was shy about taking on the rail which forms the fin of the jumpbox centrepiece, most stuck to Boardslides: only Yndiara Asp, Xiuqiancheng Han, Nina Ye and Hikari Satake put trucks onto it, which takes all kinds of courage because it is a monster. Yndi was also (unsurprisingly) one of the few to hit the enormous sub-box, which must require nerves of steel in order to come back into those huge concrete transitions from- but tame it she did, and with total consistency.

The absence of Olympic gold medallist Arisa Trew (ACL injury) leaves a door open for someone to take her virtually nailed-on finals berth (she has made finals on the WST 7 times in 9 outings) although who that proves to be is very much up for grabs at this point.

While nothing is written in terms of skateboarding certainties, Sky Brown has made podium at every WST stop she has entered to date; Mizuho Hasegawa has made every finals since WST Dubai back in 2024- only missing out on her Rome debut immediately prior; Cocona Hiraki is 9 for 9.

Perhaps less statistically emphatic but still impressive comes Hinano Kusaki with 7 finals out of 10 WST contest starts, Sakura Yosozumi with 6 out of 9 (6 out of 8 if we discount WST San Juan, where she dropped in while already hurt just to rack up nominal points)- and Raicca Ventura, with 5 finals out of 9.

Naia Laso is bang on 50%, with 5 finals out of 10 WST stops.

In the world of road cycling this group would be described as a ‘breakaway’, collectively putting distance between themselves and the rest of the field who are bunched together much more tightly.

Everyone else in the women’s division have not made finals more often than they have- and so, a battle within a battle is set up within the remainder of the field to see who can make it into those likely contested slots between positions 5 and 8 come finals day.

Minna Stess, certainly, has three finals (including two third places) to her name; her USA teammate Bryce Wettstein has made three finals too, and her wide-ranging contest experience and lip trick repertoire may serve her will on this gigantic terrain.

Nana Taboulet had made finals in the last three WST outings- but unfortunately slammed heavily on a Backside 360 over the jumpbox during pre-seeded practice today and will be out for some time, while Heili Sirvio has made finals twice- as have Isa Pacheco, Ruby Lilley and Dora Varella; Lillian Erickson made finals at the last World Championships, and has come close twice before.

With that said, however, there is one statistic which may either be an outlier or an omen: 13-year-old Hikari Satake may have never made a finals on the WST, but given that she has only entered one stop and knocked on the door with 9th place AND that she exited Open Qualification here in Paraguay lying in first place out of  71 competitors in her division with a cushion of six-and-a-half points, she may well be worth keeping an eye on as a finals insurgent.

Put it like this: current runaway leader Mizuho Hasegawa’s WST debut was 48th place- and she has been on a rocket ride ever since.

There is a temptation when watching skateboarding competitions to focus on the battle for the top three spots, but in Women’s Park on the World Skateboarding Tour right now, there is an equally fierce competition for the bottom three positions within the final eight, too.

The reason why, is that given how consistent that breakaway group of four at the top of the WSR rankings are (there is a 36,000 point drop between positions 4 and 5), making it into the top 8 would almost guarantee not needing to skate Open Qualification at the next stop (top five on the WSR plus the previous event’s podium go straight through to quarterfinals; given that at least two of three podium spots are almost always scooped by skaters already within that current top four, it would fall to the next-highest-ranked to make up that quorum- i.e. positions 6 and 7, and usually 8, too.)

Now: you may think that for a potential finalist having to skate one extra day is no big thing, but actually we see former finalists go out in Open Qualifiers all the time- not just among the women, and not just in Park.

That is what we mean when we talk about attrition and increments: at this level, any crumb of help can make the difference between progressing into the next round or catching an early flight home.

With every step we get closer to Los Angeles 2028, the more true that becomes. Everything counts.

Men’s Park does not have that same coalescence: while Egoitz Bijueska, Tom Schaar, Keegan Palmer and Luigi Cini certainly seem to be money in the bank for finals, you also have former finalists as far down the ranking as 34th place (Alex Sorgente) and indeed former World Champions in 31st (Augusto Akio) as well as a former winner now lying in 25th (Danny Leon/ WST Dubai).

Fresh off his Vert World Championship win earlier in the week and determined to demonstrate his skill in the third dimension, USA’s JD Sanchez led the pack from his third run in at the top of Heat 3 until Liam Pace overtook him with his last run at the bottom of Heat 5- meaning that he held off 33 skateboarders’ attempts to unseat him before acquiescing. Liam would end up qualifying in first place, with which he can be rightly pleased.

Other standouts from those mid-table heats include Australian Taj Wolfenden, who up until now has not been able to improve on 24th place- but looks very likely to do better than that here this week, his teammate Kieran Woolley who is a breath of creative fresh air, with runs including Acid Drops off the sub-box, manual rolls around the perimeter and Smith grinds that only someone that doesn’t have to buy their own trucks would attempt, and ever-stronger Spanish sender Alain Kortabitarte who banked his first run and was in the process of putting together a heater of a second run when he slammed with enough force to pop both his earbuds out. 

USA’s Tate Carew looked back to his chilling best, cruising through his first run without breaking a sweat, as did Sweden’s Hampus Winberg.

Back from injury, it always seemed like the enormous transitions of this Paraguay park would suit Hampus’ amplitude- and so it proved.

Making harder work of advancing than those dudes were English duo Tay Cunningham and Tommy Calvert, who got themselves off the ropes with back-to-back last-gasp full runs which raised the stoke-ometer all round, likewise Denmark’s Viktor Solmunde a heat later, as- uncharacteristically for a former World Champion- did Gavin Bottger in the final heat.

While the last two Men’s heats produced more assured performances from veterans at this level- who know how to do enough, but not risk too much, in order to progress out of the open qualification phase- it wasn’t all plain sailing for some of the bigger names in the game: Alex Sorgente and Pedro Barros were unable to proceed into the final forty at this time of asking, but rest assured both will return hard as the Road To LA28 gathers pace.

In the meantime, here are the top 32 from each Open Qualifier going forward to meet the 8 pre-seeds for quarterfinals here in Paraguay.