Liz Akama Takes First Place | World Skateboarding Tour Dubai Street 2024

Strong on the road to Paris 2024! Monster Energy congratulates team rider Liz Akama on taking first place in Women’s Skateboard Skate in the World Skateboarding Tour Dubai Street 2024 event. In the Olympic qualifier event sanctioned by World Skate, the official governing body for skateboarding in the Olympics, the 15-year-old from Miyagi, Japan, edged ahead of the competition with consistent technical tricks.

From February 25 to March 10, World Skateboarding Tour Dubai Park & Street 2024 attracted the world’s top skateboarders to Dubai Harbor. The contest marked the final chance to collect qualifier points in Park and Street disciplines before the field of riders is cut significantly for the second phase of the Olympic qualifier series. The Skateboard Street discipline finals were contested in Dubai on March 10.

Starting her Women’s Skateboard Street final with a strong run score, Akama put together a frontside feeble the flat rail, backside lipslide the flat bar, Barley grind revert the big rail, frontside 360 ollie the kicker, frontside 50-50 grind the tall ledge, heelflip bigspin the Euro Gap, and a 180 nosegrind the big Hubba ledge for 87.84 points.

When the final moved into Best Trick attempts, Akama maintained her momentum by posting a perfect backside hurricane grind the big rail for 86.48 points. She followed up with a Barley grind on the big Hubba ledge (81.19 points) and raised the bar by posting a frontside feeble grind frontside 180 out the big rail for 89.83 points.

But with Australia’s Chloe Covell taking over first place, Akama had no choice but to rise above the competition on her final attempt. And she did! A perfect frontside 270 lipslide to fakie the big rail earned 93.17 points, bringing her final score to 270.84 points for the win.

“I’m so happy right now,” said Monster Energy’s Akama upon taking the win in Dubai. “I ran out of things to do for the last trick, so I just gave it a go and happened to land it. When I spent time recovering from my injury last year, I was upset because everybody improved themselves a lot. This result made me relieved, but I know I have to work harder.”

In overall World Skate rankings for Paris 2024, Akama now commands fifth place with 178,771 points. Monster Energy team rider Rayssa Leal from Brazil sits in second place with 197,465 points.

Akama is part of a new generation of technical street skaters. In 2023, she won the World Skateboarding Tour competition in Rome as well as the Street League Select Series event in Los Angeles. Akama owns three X Games medals (2 silver, 1 bronze).

Next up, don’t miss the action as Olympic qualifications enter their second phase. Two competitions will decide the final roster for Paris 2024 in Park and Street disciplines: The Olympic Qualifier Series will hit Shanghai from May 14–19 before concluding in Budapest from June 18–23. Stay tuned!