Skateboarding Competition Rules for Athletes

Entry to a World Skate street or park event runs through one of four registration statuses, and the athlete does not pick it. Country Quota places are entered by the national federation. Extra Quota places are allocated per federation on ranking or performance. Pre-Seeded athletes are confirmed during the registration window, with the final list published alongside the practice groups. Wild Cards sit at World Skate's discretion.

Check-in decides whether you start at all. A valid passport is required to complete check-in at the accreditation office, and an athlete who fails to complete competition check-in is marked DNS. DNS is ranked at the bottom of the round and earns no ranking points.

Practice is a stated minimum, not a courtesy. The rules require at least 120 minutes of pre-competition practice in total, in sessions of no less than 45 minutes each. Only registered athletes may access the field of play.

In park, every athlete must skate individually during practice - not in groups, not synchronised. The sanction for ignoring that escalates from a verbal warning to reduced practice time to disqualification.

Competition warm-up is narrower than practice. Only the athletes about to compete in the following heat may go on the course, and in park no athlete may occupy the course longer than the full time of a competition run.

Start order is set, not drawn. The qualifier is seeded in reverse reference-ranking order; every later round - quarter-final, semi-final, final - is seeded in reverse order of the previous round, so the leader drops in last.

The run count and run duration you will actually skate are set per event and communicated with the registration information. The full range World Skate publishes is set out in skateboarding competition formats.

You have a five-second limit to begin after the course manager's signal. The signal does not start the clock: the timekeeper triggers it when you place both feet on the board.

In street the clock does not stop. The timekeeper will not stop it under any circumstances other than the athlete stopping the performance. A fall costs you exactly the seconds it takes to get back up and re-enter the course.

Park can behave the opposite way. Where a park round is run in the time-until-the-fall format, the clock stops when the athlete falls and the performance is complete. The same fall that costs a street skater four seconds ends a park run outright.

A trick counts if it was started in time, not if it was finished in time. On flat ground you must pop the tail or nose before the horn sounds; on a transition the board must have all four wheels on the sloped surface before the horn.

Once a trick is deemed to be within time it is counted as part of your performance and scored regardless of whether you land it or bail it. The horn does not erase a failed last attempt.

Re-runs exist, on three grounds only. Conditions on the field of play changed dramatically and unexpectedly during your performance; technical conditions on or around the field of play prevented you from completing a full performance; or a third party interfered with your performance.

The procedure matters as much as the grounds: stop during the interference, raise your hand, approach the Course Manager and describe the incident. The Head Judge decides, and may grant the re-run immediately or defer the decision.

Conduct violations are scored separately from skating. A disqualification arising from the Olympic Charter, the World Anti-Doping Code, the World Skate Code of Conduct or the Code of Ethics is recorded with the invalid result mark DQB - listed at the bottom of the round, with no ranking points.

Five judges and one head judge officiate an international event; a national event runs four judges and one head judge. The difference is not cosmetic: at international level the head judge does not score, while at national level the head judge scores and contributes to the tie-break.

Every run and every trick is marked 0.00 to 100.00. The highest and lowest marks are dropped and the remaining three are averaged to two decimal places. A "300-point" street total is three trimmed means added together, not fifteen raw marks.

The notation reads runs / single-trick attempts / scores that count. The third digit is not a trick count - it is how many marks, each capped at 100.00, are added at the end.

Worked example, 2/5/3. Your better run draws 82.11, 79.44, 80.67, 84.00 and 78.25. Drop 84.00 and 78.25, average the middle three: (82.11 + 79.44 + 80.67) / 3 = 80.74. Your two counting tricks trim out at 88.50 and 82.10. Final total: 80.74 + 88.50 + 82.10 = 251.34 out of a possible 300.00.

Note what that arithmetic rewards. Only three of seven performances count in 2/5/3, so once two tricks are banked a failed attempt costs almost nothing - which is why the trick phase escalates and the runs do not.

Tie-breaks resolve off the components, never a re-run. In park the second-highest run separates tied athletes, and if those also match the jury votes, one vote per judge, with the head judge recording the result.

In the combined street formats the best run breaks the tie first, then the best single trick, and only then do the judges vote electronically. For a multiple tie the judges vote again for second place, and so on.

The criteria behind each mark - difficulty, execution, variety, course use, flow, consistency and repetition - are set out in how skateboarding is scored, and the panel mechanics in the skateboarding judge guide.

Three mechanisms in the World Skate rules change how a contest actually plays out for the athlete. None of them is automatic, each is optional or tied to one format, and all of them belong in the event bulletin rather than in a ruling improvised at the fence.

First Wall Rebate gives you a restart after bailing the first trick of a run. The clock is stopped and reset, the restart must happen within a maximum of 30 seconds from the bail, and the head judge has to confirm that the bail came on the first attempted trick.

The practical consequence is a different opening. In a rebate contest the first wall is close to free, so the aggressive opener is correct. Arrive at a non-rebate contest with the same plan and one cold-board slip decides your round.

Golden Run is a finals mechanism, not a run count. After the initial runs - typically two or three - only the top five ranked athletes take one additional final run, re-seeded in reverse order so the leader drops in last.

That single change turns a park final into a closing sequence. If you sit fourth going in, you are skating a number you can see; if you lead, you drop in last knowing exactly what has to be beaten.

TNS is your own veto on a score, and it exists in one format only. Trick Not Scored is limited to the 2/5/3 format during the single-trick phase. Signal with both arms crossed above your head within five seconds of landing: the attempt is entered as 0, you carry no penalty for retrying the refused trick, and you are free to choose any subsequent trick.

That scope is the part most often stated wrongly. There is no TNS in the 2/3/2 or 3/3/2 street formats and none in park - in those, a landed trick is scored whether you like the number or not.

It also changes how a live scoreboard reads: a 0.00 in the trick phase is not necessarily a fall. It can be a landed trick the athlete declined to have scored.

Your board is barely regulated. The rules define a skateboard as a deck with four wheels attached by trucks and state plainly that the shape, materials and size of the skateboard or its parts are not limited. The single prohibition is that the skateboard cannot be physically attached to the skater's feet.

That is worth stating clearly because the opposite claim circulates widely. There is no World Skate rule banning a longboard or an unusual deck shape from a street or park event; there is a rule banning bindings.

Helmet rules differ by discipline and they are strict. All park athletes, regardless of age, must wear a helmet during practice and competition. In street, athletes under the age of 18 must wear a helmet during practice and competition.

Failure to wear a helmet when required may result in disqualification - and note that the obligation covers practice, not only the competition run.

World Skate suggests helmets complying with AS/NZS 2063, EN 1078-2012, Snell B95-1998, Snell B90, US CPSC 16 CFR Part 1203 or ASTM F1447-12. The required characteristics are cranial coverage, a hard shell, impact-absorbing padding and a chin strap with a buckle lock.

Beyond the helmet, the Street & Park Competition Rules set no protective-gear requirements. Pads, wrist guards, jewellery and headphones are event-bulletin matters, so read the bulletin rather than assuming a local norm travels.

The concussion protocol is not negotiable and it is long. An athlete suspected of a concussive injury must be removed from training and competition and is not allowed to return for the following 14 days, and must be cleared by a medical practitioner before returning.

The Event Medical Officer has the last word on every medical and health-related evaluation, the concussion protocol included. No coach, team manager or head judge can override that.

Once competition scores are approved by the head judge and published, they are final and not subject to any appeal. There is no protest window, no score review and no route back to the panel. This is the rule most often got wrong in athlete-facing advice, including in an earlier version of this guide.

What does exist is a Clarification Request - a written request for an explanation on judging or competition matters. It does not reopen a result and it is not framed as a dispute.

Where it goes. A written Clarification Request Form is filed with the Competition Secretary at the accreditation desk, or by email to sportsdepartment@worldskate.org.

When. Any time during the event, or within 24 hours of the end of the competition. After that the route closes.

Who may file. The athlete, a legal guardian if the athlete is under 18, or the National Team Manager with the athlete's consent. Nobody else.

What gets rejected. Generic requests. The form must give full details of what you are asking about - a specific performance, a specific decision, a specific procedural point. "The judges were wrong" is not a clarification request.

How it is handled. The Technical Delegate processes the request within 24 hours during the event, or within one week once the event has ended.

What you must not do. The rules are explicit: under no circumstance should the Technical Delegate, the head judge or the judges be contacted directly. Walking up to the head judge after a score - the standard advice at grassroots contests - is exactly the thing the sanctioned-event rules forbid.

The distinction that makes this coherent is worth holding onto. Skateboarding marks are an overall impression formed by a panel, absorbed through a trimmed mean; there is nothing in that system for an appeal to act on. Procedural failures are handled while they happen, through the re-run request, not afterwards.

Read the bulletin before you plan a single run. It is the document that tells you how many runs you get and how long they are, which of the five formats is being skated, and whether First Wall Rebate and Golden Run are switched on. Every strategic decision below depends on those four answers.

Match your opener to the rebate. With First Wall Rebate on, open with the trick you actually want, because a bail on the first attempt buys a reset inside 30 seconds. With it off, the first wall is the most expensive moment of your round.

In 2/5/3, bank before you build. Two tricks count, five are available, and once two are banked a failed attempt is nearly free. Secure a score you trust early, then spend the remaining attempts on the trick you came to land.

Do not plan a TNS you cannot use. The refusal signal exists in 2/5/3 and nowhere else. In 2/3/2, 3/3/2 and park, a landed trick is scored as it stands.

In park, the fall is the whole round. A park result is one number out of 100.00 with no trick phase to recover in, and in the time-until-the-fall format the clock stops when you go down. Assemble one complete run before you chase the hardest variation.

Know which tie-break you are skating toward. A park tie is decided by your second-highest run, so a throwaway second run is a real risk. A street tie is decided by your best run first, which quietly rewards the skater who did not treat the run phase as a formality.

Arrive early enough to check in properly. Missing check-in is a DNS at the bottom of the round - the one way to lose an event without skating. Bring the passport.

Warm up on the tricks you intend to use. Pressure makes tricks harder, not easier, and the practice minimum of 120 minutes exists so that nobody has to gamble on an untested line.

Watch the field during practice. Learn which lines flow, identify a backup obstacle for anything with a queue, and check whether the surface is running fast or slow today. Most competitors never do this, and it is free.