Arisa Trew Has So Much More To Offer Skateboarding Than The 900

It was a narrative so perfectly scripted that it seemed tailor-made for media: In May, 14-year-old Arisa Trew of Australia became the first women’s skateboarder to land a 900—25 years after Tony Hawk landed the trick for the first time ever at X Games 5 in San Francisco.

The impending anniversary of the trick made Trew start thinking about attempting to learn it. Her coach, Trev Ward, sent her videos to study of other skaters doing it. (The list is not long.)

Trew began trying the trick over a two-day period at LVLUP Academy and Training Facility in Australia, which Ward founded, and came close to landing it. She started out training on a “resi” vert ramp, which features a foot-thick layer of foam or padding covered in plastic composite to cushion falls and make learning new tricks safer.

Her training was interrupted for two weeks by a trip to Shanghai for the first Olympic Qualifier series event—well worth it, as she took the win and helped secure her bid for the Paris Olympics this summer.

After Shanghai, Trew and Ward traveled to Woodward West in the U.S. to continue training, briefly on the resi ramp, but Trew was eager to bring the trick to the vert ramp. After 88 tries over four days (71 on the resi ramp but only 17 once she took it to vert), Trew successfully landed the 900.

ForbesArisa Trew, 14, Lands First 900 In Women’s SkateboardingBy Michelle Bruton

Journalists (including this one) scrambled to cover Trew’s feat. It marked a watershed moment in women’s skateboarding, the progression of which has been in overdrive in the last two years.

Trew landed the first 720 at Tony Hawk’s Vert Alert in 2023 and the first switch McTwist (a variation on a 540) this past May. In May she also became the first woman to land a McEgg, a 540 eggplant invented by Mike McGill.

ForbesArisa Trew, 13, Lands First 720 By A Female Skateboarder To Spotlight Women’s VertBy Michelle Bruton

In October 2023, at age 10, Canada’s Reese Nelson became the first female rider to do a nose grab 720.

At X Games Ventura this past weekend, nine-year-old Mia Kretzer, also of Australia, landed a cab 720 in women’s skateboard vert best trick, becoming the youngest athlete and medalist in X Games history.

Trew had a pretty good weekend at X Games, herself. The bubbly and gifted Aussie successfully defended her 2023 gold medals in women’s skateboard vert and park—which had made her the youngest X Games double gold medalist of all time, at age 13.

There was a palpable hum at X Games anytime Trew dropped in to the vert ramp—though she landed the 900 in training, no woman has yet done it in competition. She was coming close to sticking it at practice on Thursday, she told me. But heavy winds throughout the Ventura County Fairgrounds venue, especially during the women’s vert best trick contest on Saturday, weren’t making it easy.

Trew had called her shot on Friday. “I’m going to try it tomorrow,” she told me when we spoke Friday evening. That might not sound like a shocking statement—we’re used to athletes, especially in the major sports leagues, manifesting their accomplishments.

But that’s not always the case in action sports. Athletes often play their cards close to the vest—to wit, multiple skateboard and BMX athletes I spoke with at X Games said they had tricks they were holding back ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympics next month.

Whether she’s skating vert or park, Trew doesn’t operate quite like that. Action sports athletes will also frequently try to put down a “safety run” to get a solid score on the board before they try to add in their biggest and best tricks. Trew often just sends it.

And in the case of the 900, there is no vert competition at next month’s Olympics—park and street are the only skateboarding disciplines that have been added to the Olympic program.

So if Trew were going to do it in competition, it was going to be at either X Games women’s vert best trick on Saturday or the women’s vert final on Sunday.

“At X Games everybody wants to do the new things,” Trew told me. “X Games is known for world’s first or crazy things. I feel like people save things for X Games more than other comps. There’s a big crowd, it’s a big competition; it’s just way cooler to to do it here.”

Trew was fully committed to landing the 900 at Saturday’s best trick contest—so much so that, when she wasn’t able to do so through five attempts (and one bonus attempt after time had expired), she finished off the podium, because she didn’t put down anything safer.

But she came so close—landing a couple of her attempts with one foot on—that the possibility of a world’s first remained alive for the women’s vert final Sunday afternoon.

Before that, however, Trew had the women’s park final on Sunday morning, where she earned her second consecutive gold medal.

In the event, Trew’s style, flow and mastery of utilizing the course were on full display.

Her second run secured her gold medal and included not only crowd-pleasing spin tricks, like a McTwist, but highly technical tricks that no one else in the field is doing. The end of her run featured a half Cab mute transfer into bowl, backside lipslide revert and half Cab frontside noseslide revert

Less than two hours after her park win, Trew was on the other side of the Ventura County Fairgrounds competing in the women’s vert final.

Trew put down a complete run on her second attempt that included an alley-oop method air, McTwist, frontside nosebone air, body varial McTwist, varial lien air, Madonna, backside 360 Indy, frontside Cab tail, frontside crooked fakie and frontside Half Cab noseslide revert.

The score of 87.00 held for gold, setting up a victory lap in Run 4, which she decided to use to put down a full run of stylish tricks—she’d really wanted to land a kickflip Indy—rather than for a 900 attempt.

After the clock had run out on the contest, however, organizers gave Trew two more attempts to see if she could land the 900. Hawk also got extra tries at X Games 5 in 1995—landing it on his 11th.

Trew wasn’t able to land the 900, but her smile was no less wide for it as her second gold medal of the day was placed around her neck. She’s now the first skateboarder to win back-to-back double golds in park and vert.

Landing a 900 is a way of attaining skateboarding immortality. No matter what else she does in her career, Trew will always be known for that milestone.

But skateboarding is about so much more than spamming one trick, no matter how impressive.

“Arisa doing the 900 is a huge milestone; it’s insanely impressive and I still can’t believe it really, but I think it’s just kind of going to open the doors for more girls, her especially, to start doing other stuff and exploring that weird realm of vert that’s been kind of untouched for awhile,” Tom Schaar, Trew’s Monster Energy teammate, said in a video the brand put out to mark Trew’s accomplishment.

“I only know two people who have ever done a McEgg, and Arisa is one of them,” Schaar added. “If I could do a McEgg, I’d retire immediately.”

Schaar will join Trew in Paris this summer to compete in park. But both would like to see vert added to the Olympic program.

“Park is really important for me because I love competing, and I’m gonna be competing at the Olympics in park.” Trew said. “But I hope vert gets in, because I much prefer skating vert. I like both and I’ll always skate both, but I just like vert more, and I would probably rather people talk about if I skated really good in vert than park.”

Trew isn’t worried about added pressure when she competes in her first Olympics next month. For her, it’s no different than X Games—or, for that matter, practice. Perhaps that mentality is the key to her recent dominance.

“I skate a lot, every single day, probably five or eight hours, to get the tricks on lock, and then in my mind I’m having fun all the time,” she said. “When it comes to a comp I just feel like I’m skating normally. If I get nervous then I don’t do well. If I feel like I’m just skating like I was five minutes ago in practice then I just feel good.”