<div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Out of 184 skateboarders registered on Monday, only 32 can go forward from here- so the action is suddenly more serious and focused.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There to enjoy it all are schoolkids bussed in from Kitakyushu and surrounding areas- hundreds over the space of a few days- to experience one heat each of skateboarding at the highest level for the first time.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It is particularly heartwarming to see an all-girls school witness female skateboarding at this incredible level. How affirming it must be to see young women their age doing things which for their teacher’s generation must have been inconceivable. We are living in a changing world, every day.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As you might expect for the second WST stop in Japan (the previous being World Championship Tokyo in December 2023), Asia is well represented here. Not just Japan, who are quickly becoming the dominant force in competitive skateboarding worldwide, but also China, Korea and Thailand- all of whom have managed to get their skateboarders into the quarterfinals against the other skateboarding superpower nations of USA, Brazil and Australia.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Two of the fastest skateboarders in the Women’s division were 13-year old <strong>Mei Ozeki</strong> and 15-year old <strong>Nanami Onishi</strong>, both of whom were absolutely flying around the course with verve and energy. They are both exciting future prospects and fun to watch.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The big shock of Women’s quarterfinals, however, was that World number one and Paris Olympic gold medallist <strong>Coco Yoshizawa</strong> failed to make the cut into semifinals by 0.03 of a point despite having a full second run.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Liz Akama </strong>already made the cut with her first (incomplete) run, but missed completing her second by the buzzer and will have to pay close attention to her time management if she is to progress beyond semis.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Men’s quarterfinals were opened by a powerful run from Australia’s <strong>Daniel Woolley</strong>, younger brother of WST Park skater Kieran. France’s <strong>Joseph Garbaccio</strong> managed to complete his second run with a huge nosebluntslide on the wooden out-ledge, but fellow Europeans <strong>Simon Gerber</strong>, <strong>Remco Erkeland</strong>, <strong>Pascal Teixeira</strong> and <strong>Jonas Larsen</strong> were less lucky and unable to complete full runs. Australian veteran <strong>Tommy Fynn </strong>was a crowd favorite but could not land the 360 kickflip to noseslide on the yellow hubba in either run.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Incredibly, <strong>Nyjah Huston</strong> is out at quarterfinals stage because the standard is now so high that it basically comes down to can you land your last mega-trick- and, needing to do so on his second run, he could not. Going through to the next round, however is Brazil’s Tour newcomer <strong>Wallace Gabriel </strong>who had a superb first run capped off with a switch backside lipslide to power into tomorrow’s semis.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Doing likewise is Japan’s <strong>Yukito Aoki</strong>, who looks like he has broken his run of bad luck for now (he last made it to finals at WST Dubai back in March 2024).</div><div style="text-align: justify;">That same luck was not in for USA’s <strong>Braden Hoban</strong>, who somehow managed to fall off his last trick as he was rolling away on what was an otherwise perfect run that would have easily taken him into the next round.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The long day came to an incredible crescendo with<strong> Ginwoo Onodera</strong> and <strong>Toa Sasaki</strong> crashing out unexpectedly, while Great Britain’s 55th-ranked<strong> Joe Hinson </strong>made it into only his second semifinals of the WST by just one point.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Tomorrow is a new day- but can it really be any more exciting than this one?</div>