Part 7: Queensland’s World-Class Competitive Skateboarders

Thank you to Slam Skateboarding Magazine editor Trent Fahey (all issues are part of the collection at State Library of Queensland) and journalists Nat Kassel and Josh Sabini. Additional thanks to photographers Mike O’Meally, Wade McLaughlin, Robbie Cameron, Jack Cassidy, and Peter Sondergaard, Rachel Torti, Andrew Viles, Toby Mellonie, Jay Musk, Sarge Jhogenson, Daniel Vincent, Mike Lawry, Kane Stewart, Izy Duncombe, Sarah Huston, Andy MacKenzie, Scott Shearer, Mark Brimson, Stu Fogarty, Curtis Hay, Mitchell Roberts and many others. And a special thanks to my fellow We Skate QLD team members, Evie Ryder, Miljana Miljevic, Brooke Manning, Connie Leung, Jingjing Yang, Lil Turek and numerous members of the Brisbane and QLD skateboarding community for sharing their knowledge.

This blog is one of a 7 part series. To view the other blogs, click here. 

Queensland skateboarders have a history of worldwide accomplishments, from acquiring international sponsorships to competing in prestigious worldwide competitions such as Street League Skateboarding to the Olympics. The Bay Skate for instance, founded by Kane Stewart, a filmmaker, and skate shop owner, plus Casey Stewart, Tim Black and Johnny Beer was home to many individuals of this calibre. Their pivotal team included skateboarders such as Dennis Durrant, Tommy Fynn, Alex Lawton and Joel McKilroy. This team and many of their peers pushed the technical side of skateboarding to new levels of difficulty, grace and style, while also highlighting the creative relationship skaters have to the built environment. 

Others to feature in the Bay Skate videos include Pat ‘Patty G’ Gemzik who started skateboarding since 1999, became sponsored in 2008 and features in street video parts as well as creating his own films. He is also a high-profile MC and figure in skate coaching, including his new role as a high-performance coach for Skate Australia.  Adult skateboarders also working as skateboarding coaches to nurture new talent and get more people on boards include Samuel ‘Sammy’ Fulwood, Mat ‘Chiggy’ Chigwidden, Leon Sloth, Jim Dandy and Trev Ward (whose Level Up Skate Academy trains Olympian gold medallist Arisa Trew OAM).

There’s also an active women’s coaching cohort that includes Izy Duncombe (Sugar Cane Skate School) and coaches such as Amanda France (Skate Well), Sarah Huston from Yeah Girl, Tenille Licari who ran her own coaching lessons, Taniah Meyers and Mikayla Senior’s Fast Plant Skateboarding, and current members of the We Skate QLD team including Evie Ryder, Dr Indigo Willing, Millie Miljevic, Connie Jeung, and others who also coached for the former Australian Skateboarding Community Initiative (now Rumble Skateboarding).

Various Indigenous skateboarders in Queensland have made a distinct and positive impact on the Queensland scene. Songline Skateboarding is a First Nations team founded by Joshua Weribone on the Gold Coast and the team tour state and national competitions regularly while also providing workshops in urban, regional and remote areas for youth and next generation skateboarders. This includes Queensland based skateboarder Dani Campbell. Nicky Hayes from Spinifix Skateboards, based in Central Australia at Ltyentye Apurte is also a member of Songline Skateboarding team and organised a First Nations skateboarding tour to the Sunshine Coast, the very first of its kind.

Skateparks are full of diverse bodies and styles of skating that can go under-recognised, yet represent Queensland at the highest levels. Timothy Lachlan, the founder of WCMX and Adaptive Skateboarding Australia, is also from Queensland. He is the first professional wheelchair skater to land a backflip in Australia and was part of a tour with Tony Hawk in 2024.

On any given sunny day, locals on the Gold Coast will see world-class street and park skating at skateparks like Pizzey, Elanora, and ‘Alex’ at Alexandra Heads. Many also find their progress is boosted through practicing with friends and peers at skater-run schools like Level Up Academy (run by former competitive vert skater Trevor Ward). In regional areas such as Ipswich and Toowoomba the parks are also home to well-attended competitions and skate scenes. The ‘Rumble on the Reef’ competition held in North Mackay and hosted by Rumble Skateboarding (formerly the Australian Skateboarding Community Initiative founded by Donny Fraser) also comes alive each year with some of Queensland’s best skateboarders in street and park. This includes internationally recognised and sponsored skateboarder Tommy Fynn and Indigenous skateboarders such as Dani Campbell. Grassroots to high level competitions in Queensland all play an important historical role in the ground laid in place as Australia heads towards the LA 2028 Games and Brisbane 2032 Games.

Queenslanders are now at the forefront of historic wins and world records in skateboarding and are shining brightly on the podiums. Gold Coast-raised skater Keegan Palmer made his mark by winning Gold in the Park Division in two consecutive Olympic Games - at the Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 Olympics. Keegan is joined by Arisa Trew OAM who at the Paris Olympics at just 14 years old at the time became the youngest Australian to ever win a Gold Medal. This achievement joins many ‘firsts’ for Trew, including her being the first girl or woman to land the 720 and 900 tricks (referring to body rotations on a skateboard on a ramp or bowl). Trew also achieved these tricks in front of Tony Hawk, the world’s most famous skateboarder historically recognised for first landing these tricks. Trew has also broken records as the youngest girl or woman to win two gold medals at a single X-Game event in 2023, and in 2025 for winning her 8th X-Games, the most of any woman in the history of the competition. Trew was also awarded a Medal in the Order of Australia in 2024 for contributions to sport. 

Many more phenomenal skaters have been honing their skills in the Sunshine State. This includes Paris Olympian Haylie Powell, as well as young powerhouses such as Chihiro Young who is making her debut competing in the World Skate SB Games, and Hudson ‘Huddy’ Walker who enthralled veteran skaters by doing a 900 trick at a competition in Bondi this year. In short, Queensland is proving to be a training ground for some of the best skaters in Australia and the world, with girls in particular opening the gates for more to follow. 

The next part of this project’s blog series will begin to shed more light on the personal stories of skateboarders from Queensland. Throughout the remainder of 2025 members Queensland skateboarding community and fans can also continue to reach out and discuss their skate memories, histories, and collections. I will be visiting Queensland State Library in November and posting about the project with my appointment times on the @weskateqld on Instagram. You can also read more about my project in Slam Skateboarding issue 245 (Autumn 2025) available from the State Library Queensland collection.

Read other blogs by Dr Indigo Willing (to be released weekly):

• Part 1 - The Early Subculture of Skateboarding in Queensland
• Part 2 - Queensland Skateboarding Zine-making Tradition
• Part 3 - Picture Us Rolling: Visual Storytellers in Queensland Skateboarding
• Part 4 - Good Company, Good Vibes: Queensland Skateboarding Businesses
• Part 5 - Rolling Out the Red Carpet: Skateboarding Icons and Everyday Heroes
• Part 6 - We Skate Too: Women, Non-Binary, Queer and Non-Traditional Skateboarders

References

Willing, I and Shearer. S, (2015) ‘Diverse Voices and Representations of Community Support for Skateboarding’ in Skateboarding: Subcultures, Sites and Shifts, London: Routledge. Edited by Lombard, K-J. pp. 44 – 56 https://www.routledge.com/Skateboarding-Subcultures-Sites-and-Shifts/Lombard/p/book/9781138067905

Willing, I, and Pappalardo, P (July, 2023) Skateboarding, Power and Change, London: Palgrave MacMillan.  Publisher information: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-99-1234-6 / https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-1234-6