Athlete Profile
Arisa Trew: Lands 900, Aims For More At X Games Ventura
By Colin Bane
Chris Tedesco/X Games
Australia’s Arisa Trew made history on May 29...
...becoming the first woman skateboarder to land a 900.
It’s been a wild 12 months for the teen. She enjoyed the best X Games of any 13-year-old ever in 2023, earning gold medals in Women’s Skateboard Park AND Skateboard Vert. That smashed a record Shaun White set 20 years ago as the youngest to win two gold at one X Games and made Arisa the first female skateboarder to do the double. Oh, and she also used the first 720 in a woman’s vert contest for a dramatic walk-off victory.
The 900!
And now the just-turned 14-year-old has a 900. Prepare for more never-been-dones at X Games Ventura 2024: “My personal goals for X Games will be to win Vert and Park and Vert Best Trick, and also land a 900, hopefully,” Arisa says matter-of-factly.
Trew spent the year since landing her first 720 building toward the next rotation. Tony Hawk helped coach her through the final steps of the 720, and she hopes to thank him by landing the trick with which he’s most associated nearly 25 years to the day after he changed action sports at X Games 1999.
But Arisa knows that landing the iconic spin in a contest won’t be easy. She stuck the first one at Woodward West in front of a large group including her coach, Trevor Ward, and father, Simon Trew. “Everyone was there because they wanted to support me,” Arisa says. “They were encouraging me to land it. Each try I was getting closer, and it was just really good having them all there to make it more fun.”
Landing the 900 took Arisa 34 tries on the day she nailed it and 88 attempts over the course of four days, including practicing the trick to a resi ramp. “Now I know I can do it when I have unlimited tries,” she says. “It would be amazing to do it in a contest, and that’s what I want to do. I’ll be really happy if I can do it at X Games.”
Arisa didn’t have big expectations entering XG California 2023, but once she was on site, she immediately understood that X Games energy hits different.
“In the practices, all the girls were shredding and pushing each other, and it was just really good,” Trew says. “When I saw the crowd, it was way bigger than I expected -- the biggest crowd I’ve ever seen for a contest. I was up on the platform like, ‘Wow! There’s so many people!’ It’s just a really cool feeling. I felt like I had to do the 720.”
The day after narrowly nipping Reese Nelson for Vert gold, Trew dominated Park, winning by more than 8 points. “Being a double gold medalist from X Games changed things,” Trew says. “When I came back to Australia and went to the skatepark, suddenly people knew who I was!”
Who Is Arisa Trew?
Only a year ago, Arisa was a shy 13-year-old, uncomfortable in interviews. At 14, she’s exuding calm confidence.
“In one year, she’s gone from school awards nights to X Games podiums and Guinness World Records and the sports equivalent of the Academy Awards,” says her father, Simon, referencing the Action Sportsperson of the Year nod Arisa scored at April 2024’s Laureus World Sports Awards. “It’s been amazing to see her grow into herself and see her personality come out on all these stages.”
Arisa grew up between two world-class surf breaks and was surfing with Simon and her mother Aiko at such a young age that she doesn’t remember a time before riding waves. Skateboarding came later, at age 7. “One winter it got too cold to surf, so I started skating,” she says.
She learned fast, improving quickly when she began taking lessons at her local skatepark from former pro Trevor Ward. Soon after, Ward created Level Up Academy, a year-round sports school in Currumbin near the Trew’s home in Palm Beach, Gold Coast, that Arisa joined at age 10. Level Up’s facility features a vert ramp, foam pits and resi ramps and provides academics in addition to skateboarding and BMX instruction.
“It’s just so much fun,” says Arisa, a 9th grader. “I do three hours of education in the morning, then I go skate for the rest of the day with all my friends.”
Those friends include close pal Jada Ward, Trevor’s daughter (an alternate last year at X Games California 2023). The pair travel and skate the world together, and Arisa’s doing so in her favorite color: pink. Arisa says she loves opportunities to lean into her girly side, as she did when she wore a pink dress from Australian brand Petal + Pup to the Laureus Awards ceremony. She has a signature pink helmet and wears pink knee pad caps from S-One, saying that she hopes the line inspires more girls to try skateboarding and to be themselves.
She’s certainly inspiring more girls...
...to try skateboarding. After growing up admiring X Games gold medalist skaters like her Hosoi Skateboards teammate Moto Shibata and fellow Aussie Keegan Palmer, Arisa says she’s honored to now be a progression leader. In November, 9-year-old Australian Mia Kretzer learned the 720 and immediately sent Arisa a video clip thanking her for the inspiration.
“I’m really happy that since I landed the 720, a lot of the girls have been pushing much harder and some have even learned 7s,” Arisa says. “All the girls are getting so much better, which is really good to see because it just pushes everyone, even myself, to get as good as you can and just keep progressing.”
Arisa certainly is doing that. In the month before X Games Ventura 2024, she unveiled footage of two new 540 variations that had never been landed by women: a switch McTwist and a McEgg (handplant McTwist). And now there’s the 900.
“I’m super inspired by all the progression in women’s skateboarding and just from knowing these tricks exist and are possible,” Arisa explains. “It’s pushing me to skate a lot harder. I just want to be the best I can be, and I’m having so much fun figuring all this new stuff out. Learning something new is the best part of skateboarding.”