"VAN" (Sports Desk - 09.06.2025) :: The World Skateboarding Tour kicked off its 2025 season in spectacular style here on the Italian coast tonight, as skateboarders from across the globe descended on The Spot Skatepark in Ostia, Rome’s historic port on the Tyrrhenian Sea.
180 skateboarders from 40 nations of the globe entered WST World Cup Rome 2025, hoping to accrue extra vital points on the World Skateboarding Ranking which determines who will be eligible to partake in the LA28 Olympic Games.
Two hundred thousand US dollars in prize money was up for grabs, split evenly between both Men’s and Women’s divisions.
I tonight’s Women’s Final, half the field were Japanese, with skateboarding powerhouse Brazil represented by a sole competitor in Isa Pacheco while Naia Laso (Spain) and Nana Taboulet (France) held it down for Europe. Australia’s Olympic Gold medallist Arisa Trew was the only finalist Oceania could muster.
Conversely, in the Men’s Final half the field were Brazilian while for the first time Japan had two male finalists.
Europe were represented by 15-year-old Spanish Prodigy Egoitz Bijueska (who during the course of qualifying equalled Keegan Palmer’s Tokyo Olympic-winning score) and local hero Alessandra Mazzara who brought the crowd to full deafening roar at the very mention of his name.
As well as the competition itself, World Skate have been heavily involved in social outreach projects centred around the event.
In the past weeks, skateboarding comic books have been distributed through schools across the city, while Olympian and local hero Alessandro Mazzara has been visiting some of those same schools throughout the weeks running up to this World Skateboarding Tour 2025 launch event, sharing his inspirational story and encouraging Roman youth to get involved.
A community outreach fanzone, created and managed by the local event organisers, included a mini ramp, micro-mini ramp, a skate-surf wave and a 3 on 3 basketball court. During the course of this week over four hundred schoolkids were bussed in to watch, try and enjoy skateboarding culture and all the great things that it brings with it.
The standard of skateboarding set new heights on the World Skateboarding Tour, including the first-ever 900-degree rotation completed in a Park contest (by Brazil’s Gui Khury).
WST World Cup Rome 2025 continues next week beside the Colosseum for the other Olympic discipline of Street, before moving onto Washington DC for the World Championships in September.
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