One of the biggest skateboarding initiatives from World Skate in 2025 was the expansion of our Paris-cycle Youth Athlete Development (YAD) and Women In Sport High Performance (WISH) Pathway programmes into a wider scholarship initiative covering aspiring skateboarders, judges and coaches collectively.
Our new Development Scholarship Programme considered more than 350 applicants from 89 nations, to select a total of sixteen skateboarders, seven coaches and five judges from sixteen different countries have accepted to be a part of the initial program activity, which will launched in November 2025 with a training camp at the world-famous Woodward East action sports facility in Pennsylvania, USA.
The Programme, which is funded through Olympic Solidarity, runs all the way through to LA28 and includes immersive training stays and camps, select competition cost off-sets and performance support, area specific mentors, regular online network collaborations plus relevant vocational modules and courses such as our Coach Education Accreditation System (CEAS) and ISJC Judging programmes.
Our Woodward week saw skateboarders, coaches and judges representing Chile, Ghana, Indonesia, Mozambique, Zambia, Hungary, Morocco, South Africa, Kazakhstan, Botswana, Senegal, Uganda, Bulgaria, Venezuela, Hong Kong and Gabon immersed in an intensive, structured week of learning and sharing best practice across each discipline.
Working collaboratively with World Skate, each participant was supported by their National Federation and undertook a responsibility to share knowledge locally and help identify national sport system priorities to guide the regional implementation of subsequent development projects.
Meanwhile, a series of post camp follow-up activities have also been incorporated to maintain connection and ensure a platform for continued learning and development.
Two examples of this ongoing development already in play are Motswana Theo Setsetse’s immediate debut on the World Skateboarding Tour in Kitakyushu, Japan- where he came in 96th and thereby his nation’s first rider on the World Skateboarding Ranking at 174th, and the subsequent enrolment of female coaches Sharne Jacobs, Marianna Herczeg and Amber Clyde on the University of Hertfordshire’s Women In Sport High-Performance Pathway scheme.
The WISH leadership programme was created to support the IOC Gender Equality objective 15, which aims to increase the representation of women coaches at World Championships and the Olympic Games, where women constitute up to only 13% of coaches.
We will bring you more news from our Development Scholarship Programme, including a full-length video fromWoodward, in February 2026!