London 2019 has its skateboarding Queen and King: Pamela Rosa (BRA) and Nyjah Huston (USA)

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Skateboarding

With the London stop being the first chance ever for street skaters to start collecting points for the Tokyo 2020 qualification, we are turning an historical moment: and having 4 continents represented in both the finals, it's a really interesting clue of what we will see during the season #01.

Talking about the Women final, it has been absolutely surprising. At the beginning, the focus was obviously on Aori Nishimura and Leticia Bufoni: Aori, 2018 reigning champion, beat Leticia in Rio during the past worlds and for both of them the pressure was so high. Nishimura got the best in Rio thanks to a better strategy and timing and tonight she skated trying to defend the title. But the arena went completely crazy for the 11 years old Brazilian skater, Jhulia Mendes Leal at her first World Skate/SLS final. She will undoubtedly be the skater to beat in the future years: at the end of the two runs was first in the ranking and showed great techniques and control, despite of her young age. 
Candy Jacobs skated two great runs and, before the best tricks, was second. Leticia Bufoni was third, followed by Wilson. Maybe too much pressure on Aori Nishimura made her making too many mistakes: she ranked only 5th before the best tricks.
At the end of the first run, Pamela Rosa was leading the ranking looking for her first ever podium but had a lack of concentration in the second run and closed the first part of the competition at the 6th position followed by Sablone and Nakayama.
The final score saw the first 4 skaters so close. Leticia Bufoni didn't made it and is out of the podium with 25.9; Jhulia Mendes Leal got the third place with 26.00; The Australian Hayley Wilson, thanks also to the highest score trick (8.1) with a big spin frontside board slide done quite perfectly at the third attempt, stands in the second place. First place for Pamela Rosa, from Brazil, in this first Olympic qualification event for Tokyo 2020.

Women Podium
1 ROSA Pamela BRA
2 WILSON Hayley AUS
3 MENDES LEAL Jhulia Rayssa BRA

At the end of Men Semi final, hold in the morning, Nyjah Huston and Kelvin Hoefler, respectively at the first and second place in the worlds in Rio and in the semi final, were so close. But all the skaters provided such an amazing show with eight score over 9 and the semi final ranking provided a foretaste of what we were going to see in the night during finals. Yuto Horigome, winner of the first three stops of 2018, missed the final for a handful of points. The last spot available went in fact to the Japanese Sora Shirai who made the cut from the Open qualifiers and joined the Club 9 with his last best trick in the night.
The Copper Box Arena was full for the last final of the 2019 London Stop and for a competition that was open to any conclusion. At the end it was Nyjah Huston to celebrate with a great coming back from the 6th position in the best tricks section. Gustavo Ribeiro from Portugal got the second position and Shane O'Neill was third.

Men Podium
1 HUSTON Nyjah USA

2 RIBEIRO Gustavo POR
3 O`NEILL Shane AUS

At the end of Men Semi finals, hold in the morning, Nyjah Huston and Kelvin Hoefler, respectively at the first and second place in the worlds in Rio and in the semi final, were so close. But also the other skaters provided such an amazing show with eight score over 9: a foretaste of what we were going to see in the night during finals. Yuto Horigome, winner of the first three stops of 2018, missed the final for a handful of points. The last spot available went in fact to the Japanese Sora Shirai who made the cut from the Open qualifiers.

Click HERE for the full results

LONDON FORMAT RECAP
In the Global Open qualifiers, skaters compete in maximum 3 skaters, 3 minutes single jam session format. Event phases after the Global Open Qualifier will be run using the Olympic contest format. Each Skater performs 2 runs and 5 Tricks; the best 4 scores from runs or tricks will be added to give the total round score.

Women
Top 12 women from Global Open Qualifier advance into Semi-finals and meet the top 18 skaters from 2018 World Skate SLS World Championship: Top 8 women will advance to Final.

Men
Top 10 men from Global Open Qualifier advance into Quarter Finals to meet the skaters ranked from 21st to 38th in 2018 World Championship and the best 4 skaters, not already pre-seeded, from the SLS Ranking prior to the last World Championship. From the Quarter Finals, the top 10 men advance to Semi-finals to meet the top 20 men from the 2018 World Skate SLS World Championship: only top 8 skaters go to Final.

Photo Gallery Credits: Paulo Macedo