The Paraguay Olympic Committee campus within which the the 2026 Street Skateboarding World Championships were held sits on the perimeter of the nation’s international airport.

Perched in the stands, your eye is caught intermittently by the take-off of jet planes which provide an apt visual metaphor (don’t you just love it when that happens?) not only for the action we were witnessing, but the significance of this event as the first big points munch on the Road To LA28.

Men’s finals were up first, and MC’s Lucy Adams and James Arias had done a splendid job of getting the standing-room-only crowd into a froth before Brazils’ Ivan Monteiro rang the starting bell by reprising the run that brought him here: Back 270 Lip on the handrail, quick Nollie Heel into the bank, Backside Noseblunt on the quarter (we saw a lot of those), signature Backside 270 Nollie Heelflip on the pyramid which he never, never misses, Switch Back Tail on the outside of the hubba ledge and a gap-to-Lipslide to finish. A tidy opener, which touched a lot of points on the course, but he could not add his preferred opening upgrade of a Tre Flip Noseblunt opener on the next two runs- and tried the same thing three times on the gap to rail during his Best Trick section without success. To his credit, a lot of other skateboarders would have banked a mid-70’s Best Trick and held on for fifth given the points at stake, but Brazilians are in it to win it.

Dropping in after him was Peruvian crowd darling Angelo Caro, who looked like his time might finally have come with an opening run which opened on a Biggerflip Front Board (!) and ended on that Backside 180 Fakie Nosegrind Backside 180 out which nearly caused a riot in the stands (albeit, the first of several).

The episodic dynamic of a format split into Runs and Best Tricks is intended to offer chapters: one minute you’re up, next you’re down, and vice-versa.

In Angelo’s case he, like Ivan, may have set the early pace (first run score into the 80’s)- but again like Ivan he saw his promising start wither in the Best Trick section where he, too, came up empty-handed- and they weren’t the only ones; more about that in a bit.

Brazilian Giovanni Vianna had put his consistency problems to bed and never missed a beat all week, including a full opening run and a better third one for 85 points- but somehow the Best Trick curse which became the defining characteristic of this Men’s contest struck him, too.

Incumbent World Champion Toa Sasaki had his worst finals performance to date, and while unable to complete a full run with three shots at it, the chaos of the Best Trick section offered him a way back into the mix but there too he came up with empty pockets which never, never happens.

In fact, we knew that something untoward was afoot when both Toa and Kairi Netsuke exited the Run section already out of realistic podium contention without a completed run between them.

They both ended the competition without a Best Trick score either, which is absolutely unheard of.

Having all four of those podium threats out of contention meant that Taiga Nagai- who had held onto his second run- was now within whispering distance of a big result in his first-ever WST finals. Unbelievably, his sole make in Best Trick- second try Bigspin Front Blunt Shove-It on the handrail- was the first make of that section after 12 failed attempts back-to-back, which has also never happened before.

While you might think that was anti-climactic, it actually kept raising the stakes because it gave the skaters who looked down-and-out at the end of the run section an unforeseen opportunity to deal themselves back into the game.

Based upon the trajectories which built towards the finals, though, most people expected this to come down to a one-two slugfest between Korea’s Juni Kang and Japan’s mini-maestro Ginwoo Onodera- which is remarkable, because neither have ever won a WST stop before, but with Yuto Horigome and Sora Shirai already out there was a sense that one or both would seize their moment.

Early on it looked like Juni’s for the taking, but get this: out of nowhere, in one of those roll-throughs between runs he stubs his toe on the hubba trying the Nollie 270 Noseslide he never, never misses and faceplants. As the medics call for a stretcher, he bounds to his feet, gets his ‘good’ wrist strapped and re-enters now with both wrists supported.

When Juni then somehow managed to make a Switch 270 Lipslide over the gap-to-rail- which, to be perfectly honest, he hadn’t even got close to before- with Best Trick 2, it looked like a done deal- bear in mind, this was only the second trick landed in the whole section. Then Ginwoo, who had an equally superb run section as Juni and had broken the 90 barrier with a run which included a Kickflip Back Tail Bigspin out on the hubba, mid-run, missed his second Best Trick attempt to set up an impossibly tense last go-around. When everybody else missed their last attempts, Ginwoo had one last roll of the dice, needed north of 89 points…surely not?

With his third attempt at a Bigflip Front Blunt Bigpsin out- I kid you not- he stomped it to total incredulity all round. We were witnessing the frontier of human physical possibility being pushed back in real time: he couldn’t believe it, we couldn’t believe it, nobody could believe it. There was no way it couldn’t have been in the nineties.

Sure enough, it was- and Ginwoo Onodera had not only won his first ever WST stop, but in so doing became 2026 World Champion at this most vital juncture on the Olympic journey.

Ole-Ole-Ole-Ginwoo-Ginwoo they roared- which doesn’t really roll off the tongue, but they made a decent stab at it anyway.

All the drama you could ask for- and we still had Women’s to go.

If I tell you that Women’s had only 7 entrants due to Cora Wilton’s withdrawal through illness and still had more than twice as many Best Tricks landed, you will sense that this was an evening of unexpected turns.

Liz Akama, who only just squeaked into Sunday’s finals, was a different woman come the day: she kicked off her World Championships with a perfect first run ending in the Frontside 180 Fakie Nosegrind which is one of her calling cards for 75 points and upgraded for 78 with her third before sticking the Barley Grind which had caused her so much trouble yesterday first go- irony of ironies. She looked a lot more like the Liz we had seen before, and it was great to have her back and entertaining on top form.

Perhaps the biggest turnaround of fortunes was Jiyul Shin who qualified in first but then suffered the same fate as Toa Sasaki and Kairi Netsuke in the Men’s, leaving the run section with no meaningful chance of a podium. She gamely threw herself into the Best Trick with a Kickflip Back Lip she didn’t even practice and nearly got a Kickflip Back Tail on the A-frame rail, but gambling on a Frontside Bluntslide Shove-It mid-run twice proved to be a bridge too far this time around.

Coco Yoshizawa managed to register a 75-point second run to remain within contention going into a Best Trick section in which she was three for three, including a gap to Front Blunt- which nobody else of either sex tried- and which to be honest didn’t look likely to come off- but with both Chloe Covell and Yuma Oda being so clinical in the run section, a come-from-behind victory was off the cards for Coco.

Chloe Covell had a 7.5 cushion on Yumeka entering the Best Trick section, and in terms of ability right now there can be no doubt she is the torch-bearer for women’s skateboarding today- but when Yumeka made a Kickflip Front Feeble first go for 89.7, that left Chloe needing something worth 82 or above to retain the top spot- and her Noseblunt on the handrail, perfect though it was, still left her just under three points shy of what she needed.

Yumeka was World Champion for the second time in three years, and Chloe can take comfort in the fact that within her new-found poise and relaxed approach, she remains the best-rounded and most progressive talent in her field today.

Yumeka, however, has refined and polished her craft like no-one else: second in WST Kitakyushu, second in WST Rome 2026- you can’t front on that consistency and industry.

A deserved repeat World Champion, and a wonderful ambassador for everything that is great about skateboarding at the same time.

As a neutral, what you most hope for in a World Championship is that you get drama and changes of fortune throughout- and in that regard Street Skateboarding at the World Skate Games here in Paraguay delivered on all fronts: just ask the Mexican wave!

Skate photos: Raisa Abal/ Incidentals: Mark Dillon