The 2026 Vert World Championship in Asunción, took place on what is, to all intents and purposes, the front lawn of the presidential palace (that’s the fancy building you can see in the background).

Women’s Finals consisted of three Brazilians, two Europeans, two Japanese and Australian newcomer Jada Ward who you can get acquainted with here. Luiza Hiumi opened proceedings and did everyone a favour by sticking her first run, which sets a tempo and gives everyone a benchmark to work around. That might sound like an empty observation, but if you cast your mind back to Men’s Park at the Paris Olympic Games, hardly anyone made their opening runs and that throws everything into disarray as people panic and simple mistakes begin to creep in everywhere. Imagine being 13 years old and called upon to drop in first at a World Championship. In 4th position at the end of the Run section, she made a Christ Air, Body Varial 540 and a Kickflip Indy to Fakie in Best Trick. Talk about a debut!

With opening runs down, it looked like the final podium could already be set with Mizuho Hasegawa, Shuka Kawai and Lilly Stoephasius setting the early pace. Mizuho, notably, was ten points ahead of the chasing pack already. On Runs alone, it would be hard to argue that those were not the top three and in the correct order. But much like the introduction of the golden run in Park, Renton Millar’s push to include a Best Trick component in Vert (see here) had the effect of shaking up the snowglobe and introducing a whole new second dynamic. Helena Laurino in particular was not going to go down without a fight and overtook an ever-more-formidable-looking Lilly Stoephasius to push up into the bronze position.

Remarkably, by the fourth round of Best Trick Mizuho’s seemingly unassailable lead had withered and she needed her third attempt at what I think you could describe as a Kickflip Frontside Air to Varial over the channel in order to re-establish her Boss status- now to the tune of a 26-point lead.

You could have been forgiven for thinking that Shuka Kawai would have settled for a comfortable second place in her first World Championship but she rode the crest of the crowd’s enthusiasm for her and went all-in for the win on three back-to-back 720 attempts. When she couldn’t make it gel Mizuho was already World Champion with a trick attempt in hand and gamely attempted a 720 of her own just for the sake of it, and bowed to her rapturous audience as they acknowledged an undisputed champion when all was said and done. A class act, the Japanese: they acknowledge the love shown, and skateboarding crowds around the world love them for it.

And so to Men’s finals: as with the Women’s contest, opener CJ Hawker stuck his first run- it would prove to be his only full one- to give the pack something to chase.

It was Spain’s Egoitz Bijueska who raised the tempo with a first run full of venom and intent, but by the end of the Run section the two top qualifiers- USA’s JD Sanchez and Brazil’s Gui Khury- had pulled away from the pack to the tune of a ten-point margin.

With only Gui left to drop in for his last run, JD was the only skater to have broken the 90-point ceiling before Gui pipped him with an absolute heater of a run including one of many 900 variations he delivered tonight, despite looking like he was carrying a loose right shoulder.

Ole-Ole-Ole, Khury-Khury they chanted.

Total radness- and at that point we were only halfway done.

Actually, this is a good opportunity to mention the crowd: they were awesome. What a boost for the Paraguayan skate scene it must be to see an aerial dogfight like this in front of their presidential palace, even as lightning fluttered across a distant sky: they loved it (more on the weather shortly).

Best Trick standouts included Egoitz Bijueska’s Switch McTwist, little Ao Nishikawa’s groundbreaking Double Caballerial which was largely considered to be physically impossible featuring as it does a grabless 720 rotation (!) and Gui Khury’s 900 masterclass, the pick of which (for my money at least) was a Tailgrab 900 across an 8-foot channel(!!).

The storm which had been forecast intervened with one round of Best Trick still to go, but in truth it could only have effected the difference between 5th and 6th place at that point: JD Sanchez was leading Gui by 9 points, who himself led Australia’s Hudson Walker by 20 points, who in turn led Egoitz by 22 points of his own.

“Vert skating in 2026 is shooting through the roof!” MC Renton Millar noted- and he’s not wrong.

Two walls, thirty seconds and nowhere to hide; multiple 540s and flip tricks every 3 seconds becoming standard.

The 2026 Vert World Championships in Paraguay- what an immense experience to behold!