Preparations are in full swing to organize the best-ever edition of the World Skateboarding Tour, with both Park and Street competitions scheduled to be hosted in Dubai for the first time ever.
Held under the patronage of Sheikh Mansour bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Chairman of the Dubai Sports Council, this high-profile international event will be held at the Dubai Harbour from February 25 to March 10.
Part of the epic World Skateboarding Tour, the Dubai round will be the last opportunity for skaters to qualify for the Olympics and will decide who will advance to the 2024 Paris Games later this summer.
The Middle East’s professional skating event will stage the Park Pro Tour Stop (February 25-March 3) followed by the Street Pro Tour Stop (March 3-10) at the purpose-built Championship Class Street and Park arenas within Dubai Harbour, just next to the world-famous Palm Jumeirah.
Organized by Lausanne-based World Skate along with Arada – the UAE-based master developer alongside venue partner Shamal Holding – the event is being held in collaboration with the Dubai Sports Council and the Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism (DET).
Organizers are expecting more than 500 world-class professionals to descend for the competition, and in fact, some of them have already arrived way in advance.
The organizing committee has already released the schedule for both competitions. The Park competition will get under way with practice sessions for both men and women on February 25 followed by qualifiers for both men and women on February 28 and 29. The quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals for both categories will be held from March 1 to 3.
On the final day of the Park competition, practices will commence for the Street contest, and this will be followed by the qualifiers on March 6 and 7, and the knockout stages from March 8 to 10.
The Dubai Harbor Street and Park courses were designed to meet World Skate standards, which will allow the best skaters in the world to achieve their personal best. The skateparks offer many unique skate elements that are fair and equal for all styles and genders.
The street courses offer a double set comprising a 4 flat 4 stair arrangement with two large Hubba ledges, a round hand rail and a large square gap rail complete with drop off. This area is sometimes referred to as the best trick section as it is where the biggest tricks usually happen.
There are also five further grind rails which are mixed between round and square section steel, and four ledges which have varied lengths and heights. These options will allow for the skateboarders to show off their individual styles of skateboarding, from super technical to fast and flowing.
In the center of the street course there is a large A -frame gap to ledge that can be skated both directions, as well as a banked kicker and euro gap for challenging flip tricks. Each end of the course has a quarter pipe and a flat bank to help maintain flow and allow for creative lip tricks during the contest runs.
The park course features a bowled corner deep-end complete with pool tiles and coping to mimic the original swimming pool style of skateboarding. There is a jump box that can be used for big transfer tricks as well as two grind rails offering the opportunity to produce technical rail tricks.
The bowl offers many pockets with different heights to create speed and allow the riders to produce technical lip tricks as well as gravity-defying aerial tricks, one of the most challenging sections is the over-vert section. A large mellow hip and traditional vert wall allows skaters to make the most of their speed and this is where the big air tricks go down, which are always a crowd pleaser.
Dubai has become a global destination for hosting the most prominent sporting events, and this international competition is a great addition to the list of sporting events in the country as well as to sports tourism.
Events like this are bound to attract young people from across the world, and they will also get great attention from the public as well as from the local and international media. The competition is a wonderful model of cooperation between different countries.
Competition organizers are expecting the involvement of public and private sector entities along with participation from more than 3,500 people from outside the country, representing the contestants, their coaches, families, organisers from World Skate, as well as representatives from international media organizations.
Dubai’s hosting of the two rounds of the World Skateboarding Tours confirms the emirate’s leading position as an ideal destination for hosting major international events, and is also in line with the objectives of the Dubai Economic Agenda D33, which aims to strengthen the emirate’s position as one of the three best cities for business and entertainment in the world.
