One of the big challenges of any open-format competition series is how to bring through opportunities for entry.

The World Skateboarding Ranking is a rolling (if you will pardon the pun) event-by-event update in the two current Olympic skateboarding disciplines of Street and Park.

As the leaderboard of the World Skateboarding Tour, the WSR establishes eligibility for skateboarders on the World Skateboarding Tour to progress into the Olympic Games every four years.

The World Skateboarding Tour has two current tiers of events: World Cup (formerly Pro Tour) events which are more frequent but with slightly lower point attribution, and annual World Championship events in both Street and Park which carry the highest point-weighting.

So rather than endlessly stacking point totals which would essentially favour whoever can stay uninjured longest- and mindful as we are of all our skateboarding community’s other sponsorship obligations- our 18-month rolling results window model (launched back in 2024) allows skateboarders to be ranked on recent performances (best previous maximum 4 events for Street, 3 for Park).

The rolling ranking also easily allows for new events to be added or skateboarders to join the Tour along the way.

This change means that the ranking is no longer reset to zero after each Olympic Games.

The points earned from events held in the previous 18 months will continue to accumulate, determining the seeding and eligibility to compete in World Skate events throughout the LA28 cycle.

The comprehensive details of the WSR rolling ranking function can be found in this bulletin released in July 2024 when the system was established.

Anyone not holding one of their nation’s three national quota spots needs to be within the top 30 berth and top 6 for their country on the WSR in order to be able to progress and potentially qualify for the Olympic Games.

In this respect that position 30 cut-off point will create the 'bubble' for the entire WST defining the global sport’s elite.

This dynamic ‘bubble’ ranking model future-proofs the World Skateboarding Tour as the sole pathway to skateboarding in the Olympic Games, while at the same time it also means new athletes can join at any point without having a huge point deficit to overcome.

With all of this anticipated, it is still worth bearing in mind that by the time the LA Olympics begin only the points earned during the qualification period will apply to final WSR standings.

Point allocations for both World Championship and World Cup (formerly Pro Tour) events will remain for now as before.

The standard of skateboarding is only going up as the WST progresses around the world, so staying in contention throughout is the most sensible strategy for aspiring LA Olympians!

As a federation devoted to the principle of opportunity we are confident this dynamic rolling WSR scoring system will keep entrance into and progression from the World Skateboarding Tour active and relevant at every event we host in perpetuity into the future not just for LA28 but beyond.

So: let’s roll on out in Italy for the start of the new WST 2025 season!

Avanti!