November has been an incredible month for skateboarding. Why? Because it’s Olympic Qualifying Season. Some of the world’s best skateboarders competed against one another in Brazil, at the annual Oi STU Open. Today, we’ll be highlighting both the Street and Park side for the Men’s Competition.

The Oi STU Open is the largest skateboarding and urban culture event in Latin America. It’s held at Praça Duó in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and skaters flock there to compete. This was the last event in 2019, so they knew they had to really show up and outperform themselves and everyone else.

The event took place from November 11th – 17th, 2019. On top of the incredible skateboarding taking place, the event also featured musical performances, art exhibits, workshops, street food, and fashion!

What is the OI STU OPEN?

The OI STU Open is a Pro Tour contest on the road to the Olympics. Skaters in both Park and Street had the opportunity to earn up to 60,000 points with a first place finish. Skateboarders ranked in the top 15 of the Olympic World Skateboarding Ranking were automatically qualified for the semifinals stage. In other words, they didn’t have to compete in the qualifying rounds.

Although the event started on November 11th, 2019, not everything went exactly according to plan. As the first couple of days were reserved for practice, skaters wouldn’t begin the actual competition until Wednesday, November 13th.

Unfortunately, poor weather conditions plagued the first 24 hours of the event, resulting in morning practice runs being delayed. As the weather cleared and the ground was dry, practice runs began in the afternoon of the 12th for both Park and Street.

Men’s Park Results

First, we’re going to be looking at the Park side, then the Street side.

Men’s Park Qualifier Results

Before we go over the results of the Oi STU Open Men’s Park qualifiers, it’s important to note that skaters ranked in the top 15 of the Olympic World Skateboarding Rankings were automatically qualified to compete at the semifinals, without having to compete in the qualifiers. 

If you’re unfamiliar with how this events system works, let me briefly explain. The qualifier round is simply to qualify out of a large amount of skaters that can continue on to the semi-finals and finals.

Once they rank high enough, they can move on to the semi-finals. As the tournament continues, the skaters have the chance to move onto the finals. Obviously, whoever wins the finals, wins the event.

This is a commonly used system for events and competitions in all sports. Now that you know how it works, let’s take a look at who placed!

Top 3 Park Qualifiers

Ben Hatchell (USA): First place in the qualifiers with a score of 82.0.

Jaime Mateu (Spain): Second place in the qualifiers with a score of 81.0.

Oskar Rozenberg Hallberg (Sweden): Third place in the qualifiers with a score of 79.67.

Other notable finishes:

• Zion Wright (USA) in 5th place
• Gavin Rune (USA) in 10th place
• Andy Anderson (Canada): 17th place

Men’s Park Semi-Finals Results

The Men’s Park semifinals of the Oi STU Open saw the beginning of the USA takeover of the leaderboards.  With 4/5 of the top placed skateboarders representing the United States of America, it became apparent that the other nations would have to seriously step up their game to knock the USA skaters from the rankings in the finals. While Brazil was still holding on strong with a 4th place semifinal finish, USA skaters took 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 5th place. Not to mention 6th and 7th place were also awarded to skateboarders representing the Unites States of America. 

Top 5 Park Semi-Finalists

Alex Sorgente (USA): First place in the semifinals with a score of 87.5.

Ben Hatchell (USA): Second place in the semifinals with a score of 85.33.

Jagger Eaton (USA): Third place in the semifinals with a score of 83.5.

Pedro Barros (Brazil): Fourth place in the semifinals with a score of 83.0.

Tom Schaar (USA): Fifth place in the semifinals with a score of 82.5.

As mentioned above, USA also secured a 6th place finish from Cory Juneau, and a 7th place finish from Gavin Rune Bottger.

Men’s Park Final Results

The Men’s Park Finals went down on November 17th, 2019, and featured some insane skateboarding from some extremely talented skateboarders. Full footage from the finals is available here on the STU Youtube Channel. Be sure to check that out!

As there was a lot going on at this event, Check out below for a quick recap of the finals results and a more in-depth look at the best runs from each skater. 

Top 5 Park Finalists

Cory Juneau (USA): First place finish, with a score of 90.5. With this victory, Juneau also secured 60,000 points towards the Olympic World Skateboarding Ranking.

Jagger Eaton (USA): Second place finish, with a score of 89.25.

Ben Hatchell (USA): Third-place finish, with a score of 85.

Tom Schaar (USA): Fourth place finish, narrowly missing the third-place finish with a score of 84.5. 

Alex Sorgente (USA): Fifth Place finish, with a score of 84.25.

Other notable highlights include:

• 6th place went to Oskar Rozenberg Hallberg (Sweden)
• 7th place went to Pedro Barros (Brazil)
• 8th place went to Gavin Rune Bottger (USA)

As you can see from the results, the United States is in the lead. Brazil and Sweden are right behind, and we can only see what happens from here.

Men’s Street Results

Now we’re going to take a look at the Street Results from the competition. This competition is one that many have been looking forward to. It seems like as the qualifying events continue, the quality of each run a skater does is more and more advanced. That’s exactly why we’re here.

Men’s Street Qualifier Results

Felipe Gustavo (Brazil): First place in the qualifiers with a score of 72.33.

Chris Joslin (USA): Second place finish in the qualifiers with a score of 70.03.

Ivan Monteiro (Brazil): Third in the qualifiers with a score of 64.89.

Other notable highlights include:

• Louie Lopez (USA): 7th place
• Jagger Eaton (USA): 8th place
• Jake Ilardi (USA): 9th place

Men’s Street Semi-Final Results

The OI STU Open Men’s Street Semifinal saw 4 different countries place in the top 5. The USA, Japan, Peru and Brazil all had a strong showing at this incredible event.

Top 5 Street Semi-Finalists

Nyjah Huston (USA): Nyjah earned himself the top spot in the semifinal with a score of 33.3. But if you’ve ever seen Nyjah skate, this won’t come as much of a surprise.

Sora Shirai (Japan): Second place finish with a score of 33.27, only missing first place by .03 points! Such a tight round, and this time, Nyjah has some competition.

Angelo Caro Narvaez (Peru): Third place with a score of 33.12.

Lucas Rabelo (Brazil): Fourth place with a score of 32.87.

Kelvin Hoefler (Brazil): Fifth place with a score of 33.25.

With the scores being so close together, the finals were shaping up to be a nail-biting event! The skaters are going all out and putting it all on the line, while battling for those precious Olympic World Skateboarding Ranking points.

Who was going to take the 40,000 points? Would it be the US, Japan, Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Canada, Australia?! By November 17th, 2019, we had our answer.

Men’s Street Final Results

In the Street Finals, skaters were given two 60 second runs followed up with 5 trick attempts anywhere on the course. Those scores were then combined to give them their final score. 

Top 5 Street Finalists

Sora Shirai (Japan): First place finish with a score of 35.34. This victory secured him 60,000 points toward his Olympic World Skateboarding Ranking. 

Jake Ilardi (USA): Second place in the finals with a score of 35.24.

Lucas Rabelo (Brazil): Third place in the finals with a score of 34.39.

Dashawn Jordan (USA): Fourth place in the finals with a score of 34.38. That’s just 0.01 points away from tying for third place!

Yuto Horigome (Japan): Fifth place in the finals with a score of 32.29. If you’ve been following skateboarding, you’ve probably seen his name. I’m particularly excited to see what tricks he pulls out.

Upcoming Olympic Qualifying Events

This is the last Olympic Qualifying Event of 2019. The next ones coming up are:

• April 14 – 19, 2020 – World Skate ISO Street & Park (Yancheng, China)
• May 22 – 24, 2020 – World Skate Street (London, UK)
• May 25 – 31, 2020 – World Skate Park World Championships (China)

As you can see, there are only a handful of qualifying events left. Soon enough, we’ll see who the official Olympic Skateboarding Team is.

In Conclusion

So, those are the highlights of the event! Cory Juneau’s winning run was phenomenal and just what we expected on the road to the Olypmics. You can check that out right here on his Instagram.

The Olympics are coming up fast! With only a couple of qualifying events left, the skaters are ramping up and ready to perform on the biggest stage skateboarding has ever seen. We will keep you up to date on all the upcoming events!

As you look forward to skateboarding in The Olympics and the upcoming X Games, take this time to progress yourself! Check out Skateboarding Made Simple. It’s the most detailed lesson plan for skateboarding that exists. With 9 different volumes, you’ll go from learning how to ride on a board, to skating skateparks and landing more advanced flatground tricks in no time! Who knows, maybe you’ll be competing in the Olympics or X Games in the near future.