Skateboarding
Skateboarding
See how Jagger Eaton became Park Skateboarding World Champion in the UAE!
Jagger Eaton takes the championship, and team-mate Gustavo Ribeiro takes silver in Street during an insane fortnight of skate action from the Arabian Gulf.
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World Skate Championship Park Finals
The world's best Park skaters battle it out for the 2022 World Championships.
The WST World Championships, which took place in Sharjah, UAE, represented the beginning of a new era in competitive skateboarding. The Aljada Skate Park complex, which hosted the back-to-back Street and Park World Championships, is the centrepiece of a spectacular family entertainment hub designed by Zaha Hadid Architects – all told, an unforgettable location for an international skateboarding event. The complex consists of several separate parks, ranging from a California Skateparks-designed world-class street course and park constructions to a massive intermediate-level skatepark capable of hosting an international event all on its own.
Jagger Eaton - Switch Back Noseblunt
© Jake Darwen/World Skate
As a skateable space that can go head-to-head with any skatepark complex today, Aljada has to be seen to be believed. With a staggering 460 entrants from 60 nations jetting into the United Arab Emirates for this first event of its kind in the Gulf region, the World Championships were split over two successive weekends. As MC Tim O’Connor noted, Arizona’s Jagger Eaton was the only skateboarder to ‘double dip’ – meaning to enter both Street and Park World Championship disciplines – which speaks to an undeniable all-around skateboarding talent.
Jagger was raised around skateboarding, and, in a sense, his whole life has been leading here. He simply doesn’t make many in a crucible where even tiny mistakes are dangerous. He has deconstructed the contest format to understand what tricks are paying out and when to pull the trigger. In Street, Jagger was many people’s early favourite for the overall win, given his consistency over that first weekend in early February. Despite landing a Frontside Nollie to Fakie 5-0 right out of the best-trick gate, he couldn’t tame his new favourite Switch Back Noseblunt until after the comp was over when he pulled it out of the bag for fun and received the biggest crowd roar of the entire event.
Jagger Eaton – Frontside Nosegrind to Fakie
© World Skate
Ultimately, it was not Jagger but Portuguese team-mate Gustavo Ribeiro who would represent on the Men's Street podium, missing out on the world title by two mere agonising points but taking home a comfortably-deserved silver medal.
Gustavo Ribeiro – Tre Flip Noseblunt
© Jake Darwen/World Skate
Park proved to be the arena in which Jagger excelled in Sharjah, though. His drifting Blindside Ollies are a thing of beauty, and he is as consistent as they come. Kickflip Backside Lipslides, Kickflip Back Noseblunts, Blunt Kickflip out and Indy 540s all went down in his final 45-second run. Having not necessarily arrived in the finals as the favourite, he did his signature sixth-gear thing when it mattered against a field of Park specialists and departed the UAE as the 2022 Park World Champion.
Jagger Eaton – Ollie Fakie
© World Skate
Watch Jagger take the crown on our live replay up top, and lock down your aerials for more skate contest action coming this way right throughout 2023.
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