Skateboarding’s Road To LA28 officially kicked off in spectacular style in Rome on Sunday evening as the World Skateboarding Tour reached a dramatic finale at the Spot skatepark in Rome’s seafront neighbourhood of Ostia for WST Rome Park 2026.

As might have been expected for such a significant launch event, the international elite of Park skateboarding were in attendance to do battle in this concrete proving-ground by the Tyrrhenian Sea: 169 skateboarders from 47 countries locked horns here in Italy over the last week, including both Australia's current Olympic gold medallists Arisa Trew and Keegan Palmer, as well as current World Champions in the UK's Sky Brown and Spain's Egoitz Bijueska.

The free event saw stands packed to capacity, while a live broadcast audience in the hundreds of thousands tuned in to urge their heroes ever onwards from all around the globe.

In Women’s finals, Great Britain’s Sky Brown set the tempo with an unprecedented three runs over 90 points before diminutive Japanese 15-year-old Mizuho Hasegawa produced a fourth ‘Golden Run’ guided by pure inspiration worth 96.33 for the highest-ever score in Women’s Park on the World Skateboarding Tour. 

96.33 points worth of pure bedlam in the stands- and when Sky could not find a reply of her own, victory went to Mizuho who won for the first time here last year. 

Her Japanese compatriot, 2023 World Champion Cocona Hiraki had a perfect trio of runs herself but came in a comparatively distant third this time around: four points shy of Sky and fully seven short of Mizuho.

Men’s final was the all-time classic which saw the highest standard of skating ever seen in Men’s Park.

By the end of three runs, each of the top five skaters going into the ‘Golden Run’ had already banked a score higher than 90 points- which has never happened before. 

On top of that, Japan’s Issei Sakurai replicated Sky’s three-run 90+ sweepstake with the most insane and complete performance of all-time in this genre.

USA’s Tom Schaar chased him down hard for second, but slammed heavily on his last roll of the dice and current World Champion Spain’s Egoitz Bijueska was himself flawless for third place, better even than his victory here last year.

The Park event was only the first leg of this WST World Cup Rome double header- next up is our Street event from Colle Oppio overlooking the Colosseum!