Avid followers of the World Skateboarding Tour (and hopefully that means you, friend-) will be aware of the scoring concept of a ‘bubble’ position, meaning the eliminator spot below which you stand to lose out on advancing to the next stage.

So in Open Qualifiers, for example, the bubble spot would be 32nd, because everybody there or above goes into Quarterfinals, everybody else goes out. Ditto position 16 for Quarterfinals, position 8 for Semifinals- and, indeed, position 3 for podium on Finals day itself could be considered a bubble spot of its own.

So that is the concept of the ‘bubble’ in-event, but there are also two less obvious bubbles within the World Skateboarding Ranking itself.

The first is position 30, because being in the top 30 is the only way for teams to take advantage of Quota allocation guidelines which limit the number of skateboarders from any one country who can enter any given WST stop.

If you are not among your nation’s top three choices, a maximum of six of you from within the top 30 can also enter.

If that sounds like no big thing, Japan already have nine and Ria Tanno is knocking on that door, so you can see how that top 30 bubble is likely to shape decision making within their camp, soon.

Similarly, a country can nominate to bring up to three skaters who lie outside the top 30, and leave the rest to get into that window of eligibility for the opportunity of inclusion in their national squad as one of those (potentially) six additional slots- but getting there or staying within those 30 is far from a given; you only have to look at how many recognisable names languish further down the leaderboard to realise nothing is certain at this level.

We have also seen within the last year the creation of a variable, almost invisible bubble within that top 30 of its own. Although it is not immediately obvious, it may prove to be one of the most telling barriers of all, and it is the pre-seeding bubble.

The reason why it is variable is very simple: the podium places from the last event plus the next five highest-ranked skateboarders on the World Skateboarding Ranking advance directly into Quarterfinals at the next event and don’t have to skate Open Qualification.

Now: you may think that given Open Qualification in Street only consists of two 45-second Runs, a skateboarder who is normally in the top 30 should breeze it but let me tell you that over the last year the reverse has been true.

A lot of big names have found themselves in the unusual position of having to duke it out with amateurs from around the globe who have no reason to hold back, and for one reason or another sometimes come up short in so doing.

As well as the top end of skateboarding going up on the World Skateboarding Tour so, too, is the baseline standard- and with only 32 advancing out of that pool- which is never less than a hundred- never underestimate the incentive for a hungry unknown to pinch an established name’s space in the next round.

Since those podium places don’t have to necessarily belong to anyone in the top 10 that means- in theory- only the top 5 in the rankings are safe come what may- but in real life it almost never happens that all 3 podium places go to skateboarders outside those positions, so we can say that the hard pre-seeding bubble lies at position 5 but can stretch as far down as 8th place if, as is often the case, those previous podium places went to skateboarders already shielded within the top 5 on the basis of previous results.

So with that said and the fact that the top 16 of the World Skateboarding Ranking in both Men’s and Women’s have only seen one new entrant each between Paraguay last month and now, we can see that the results at the top end of the leaderboard are beginning to stabilise as the Tour matures, and that these bubble-centric 'battles within battles' are only going to become more important as we roll ever onwards toward LA28.

Be sure to keep a close eye on those internal bubble dynamics as we continue our shared journey around the globe by concluding the 2026 World Skateboarding Tour season here in Utsunomiya, Japan!