2025 was a year of tumbling world records and an ever-evolving event calendar for World Skate, as we oversaw 29 events worldwide, welcoming 3,957 gifted athletes from 81 nations to compete in countries as far apart as Argentina and China, Latvia to Singapore!

Let’s begin this bumper year with Artistic Skating: the Artistic International Series hosted events in Buenos Aires alongside Trieste and Reggio Emilia in Italy, and 2025 also saw a World Championships in Beijing- as well as a training camp and seminar in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The South American capital of performative dance also played host to a Figure World Cup event in 2025: for more on any story in this lookback, just click on the relevant text to read our deep-dives about groundbreaking achievements- such as the new world record score in Free Skating from Portugal’s Madalena Costa (260.15), or Roberta Sasso’s new world record scorefor Italy in Solo Dance!

Speed Skating came into its own in 2025: the season opened with an inaugural World Skate Marathon Tour stop in Shanghai, which re-wrote history by anointing 17-year-old Valentina Cano as the youngest-ever WSMT winner.

Based upon the enormous success of the event, Shanghai will now will become a fixed stop on the Tour, going forward.

Speed Track found a new finals destination in Xinhua, China- which hosted a top-tier World Cup final- while the Speed Skating World Championships lit up the Chinese beach resort of Beidaihe in September just gone.

Beidaihe will be remembered for the emergence of India as a new podium challenger, particularly in the form of Anandkumar Velkumar, who’s success was heralded by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Colombia dominated the medal tally, however: 20 golds, 16 silvers and 8 bronze medals in total!

The 2025 World Games in Chengdu, China this year also saw three World Skate disciplines involved. 

The World Games are the premier international multi-sport event for sports not featured in the Olympic Games, held every four years under the patronage of the International Olympic Committee.

World Skate were there to showcase Inline Hockey, Speed Skating and Inline Freestyle in one of the biggest events of the annual calendar.

Spain’s Jhoan Guzman claimed five medals in Speed- including two new world records- in Chengdu (and was also given the event’s Athlete Of The Year award), while the World Games in Chengdu also made headlines through the breakout USA victory in Men’s Inline Hockey.

China would also make a big impact in the world of Inline Freestyle in 2025: Chinese athlete Song Yaqi would set a new speed slalom World Record, while the same nation also dominated the podiums at the Inline Freestyle World Championships in Singapore come December.

Inline Freestyle had a big year, more generally speaking- not just because of its World Games debut in Chengdu, but also featuring in Milan’s Hero Battle Cup, which brought the action to the heart of Italian taste-making society.

In Rink Hockey, meanwhile, Sporting Club Portugal and Vila Sana dominated proceedings at international club level in Argentina this year, which demonstrates that something fundamental within the sport is happening there- can it continue into the new year?

Meanwhile Inline Slalom, one of the most hair-raising of rolling disciplines, hosted a memorable World Cup Final this year as Germany’s Noah Sing and Lisa Schmid closed out the 2025 Inline Alpine World Cup season in style, taking the slalom titles at the final event in Ikšķile, Latvia.

Sakai hosted a first-of-its-kind double World Championships in Japan in 2025, as Roller Freestyle shared pride of place with Scootering in Japan at the tail end of the year in a spectacular twin event; Brazil’s Danillo Senna and Ana Julia Da Silva rolled away victorious in Roller Freestyle Park, while UK’s Jayden Sharman managed the remarkable feat of defending his World Championship crown in Scootering Park.

At exactly the same time on Japan’s southernmost island of Kyushu the World Skateboarding Tour drew to a close at WST Kitakyushu World Cup Street, with a superb Japanese one-two knockout punch in Street with Sora Shirai and relative newcomer Ibuki Matsumoto taking the top spots.

Sora Shirai’s was a repeat WST victory having done so already back in June during the fabulous two weeks of both WST Rome Street and WST Ostia Park World Cups back-to-back, which also saw Chloe Covell win her first-ever WST stop in Street- while Mizuho Hasegawa did the same in her Park discipline.

WST Rome Street 2025 also saw World Skate host IOC presidents Bach and Coventry as well as LA28 delegates, who experienced the intensity of WST action first-hand!

Men’s Park at WST Ostia World Cup 2025 was memorably won by Spain’s Egoitz Bijueska, who clocked up the highest-ever Park score along the way at 95.83 in a no-prisoners contest which also saw the first-ever 900 in a Park contest!

Finally, fittingly- in a year which saw so many records achieved- Slalom Skateboarding pioneer Judi Oyama was also inducted into the Guinness Book Of Records for her unbroken rolling career.

A terrific acknowledgement and a final bow around what has been an incredible year in the world of sports on wheels, a testament to the passion and mastery of all involved.

2026: here we all come!