Cocona Hiraki Takes First Place at World Park Skateboarding Championships
Monster Army Rider Cocona Hiraki Takes First Place in Women’s Skateboard Park at the 2023 World Park Skateboarding Championships in Rome, Italy.
We have a new world champion! Monster Energy congratulates team rider Cocona Hirakion taking first place in Women’s Skateboard Park in the 2023 World Skateboarding Tour finals in Rome, Italy. In the official World Park Skateboarding Championships sanctioned by World Skate, the official governing body for skateboarding in the Olympics, the 15-year-old from Hokkaido, Japan, rose all the way to the top and claimed the title.
From October 1-8, the 2023 World Skateboarding Tour Park attracted the world elite of the sport to The Spot skatepark in Lido di Ostia. With official titles for Men’s and Women’s World Champions on the line, the event also doubled as an official ‘Road to Paris 2024’ qualifier event for the upcoming Summer Olympics.
After an intense semi-final session, eight riders out of sixteen earned their way into the Women’s Skateboard Park final. The final eight competitors represented Brazil, Germany, Japan, Spain, and the United States.
Heading into the final, Monster Army’s Hiraki took an early lead with a perfect run for 92.08 points. On her second and final run, the Olympic silver medalist dialed up the trick difficulty to seal her victory: backside nosegrind over the love seat, backside ollie into the bank, backside no-grab kickflip the deep end, frontside ollie the volcano, backside tailslide, frontside crailslide, frontside nosegrind the corner, Indy air the channel, frontside 50-50 transfer the spine, backside lipslide, and frontside stalefish revert into the bank earned Hiraki 94.54 points and the title of World Champion in the Women’s Skateboard Park discipline.
“I'd only finished second and third before, so I'm really happy to be the world champion for the first time,” said Monster Army’s Hiraki upon winning the WST Park World Championships in Rome, adding: “I'll be aiming for the top spot again if I can make the Paris Olympics team.”
Hiraki is part of the Monster Army amateur athlete support program. At the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, she entered as the youngest Japanese Olympic athlete in history and claimed the silver medal in the Women’s Skateboard Park discipline. She earned the gold medal in Women’s Skate Park at X Games Chiba 2023.
