One facet of what makes Park skating unique is that unlike most activities or sporting endeavours- except those for which the terrain is shaped by nature like surfing and snowboarding- the space in which the game is played is relatively fixed. Yes, tennis has different surfaces- but those surfaces are uniform across each strata.

Park contests, historically speaking, have been held at skateparks which were designed for public use primarily, and were therefore constrained somewhat in what we might call the ‘gnar factor’ by virtue of the fact that novice skateboarders should be able to ride them without any major danger to life and limb.

When it comes to something which is custom-built for the elite of world skateboarding, all that goes out the window and  you can have creations that seem to have been drafted by a madman. The layout of the WST Dubai Park is absolutely full-on.

We are loomed over by skyscrapers here on the Dubai waterfront, each of which is a small miracle of engineering and a monument to the ingenuity of humanity. The same can also be said of California Skateparks’ creation for this contest, and we should take a moment to applaud the tireless work of Slovenian master craftsman Davor Miljkovic and his team who have been out here for weeks constructing this absolute beauty of a park.

To add to the atmosphere, all the street skaters taking part in the second half of WST Dubai arrived, so the stands were packed with a clued-up and energetic crowd.

The stage-setting for the women’s final couldn’t have bee tee’d up any better: all 8 skaters made their first runs which also saw the first female 90+ score of the entire contest, with Japan’s Kokona Hiraki logging the first of two back-to-back 91 scores in her opener.Second runs took on a different complexion with five runs aborted by slams until first place qualifier Naia Laso fulfilled her destiny with the run of a lifetime which included no less than three 360 variations and a kickflip indy finisher which everybody knew was the likely winning run even before the 93 score came in.

What this meant was that all seven of her competitors had a clear shot at taking her off pole position but given only Kokona Hiraki had posted a 90+ score hitherto it seemed like only she might, and when she uncharacteristically bailed on one of her opening tricks, Spanish victory was a foregone conclusion. A shy but mightily impressive star is born. In third came 13-year-old Japanese powerhouse Mizuho Hasegawa who seems to have appeared from nowhere having only made it as far as 48th at her WST debut in WST Ostia but blew minds here.

For the Men’s division it would prove to be an Iberian repeat as Danny Leon won outright in his first WST final with his first run and only the second run of the contest itself which scored the only 90+ score in his division. In second came the flawless Gavin Bottger who made all three of his runs perfectly and as such being the only skater in either final to do so while in third came Rune Glifberg’s 16-year-old Danish protege Viktor Solmunde who is already better than his mentor was at his age, and was the fastest skateboarder in the park by far.

We will bring you a rider-by-rider breakdown of the finals in the coming days, but for now we invite you to enjoy our contest edit below!