‘Just gnarly’ 10-year-old skater prepares for competition

With national skateboarding championships Bowlzilla taking place on for Saturday, skaters from around the country have converged on Wellington to compete in the weekend event.

Amongst these competitors are friends Yougee Wu, Gala Baumfield, Eden Sharp, Georgia Richardson, Ignacia Munoz, and Cece Doller. The young women were hanging out at Waitangi Park on Friday, in preparation for the intense competition on Saturday.

Women skateboarders are a quickly growing bunch. When women’s street skateboarding was added to the Olympic roster in 2021, Momiji Nishiya became the sport’s first gold medallist, aged 13 at the time.

Skateboarder Gala Baumfield said skating was a supportive sport and a great community for young women to join.

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“It’s definitely a good community for young girls coming up through the sport.”

A member of the supportive skating community – and an example of someone who has thrived in it – was Ignacia Munoz. The 10-year-old had come down to Wellington from Auckland with her father, to compete in Saturday’s competition.

Ignacia’s father, Sebastian Munoz, said Ignacia started skateboarding a year-and-a-half ago. Before that, she performed ballet and played soccer, but thew herself into the sport after joining Girls Skate NZ run by Amber Clyde.

Munoz said skateboarding was challenging, and could be extremely frustrating for Ignacia. Sometimes it could take 100 tries for her to get a move correct – teaching her perseverance and tenacity.

However, Munoz said he preferred to support his daughter playing sport than being in front of the computer. The family had travelled around the country for Ignacia to participate in skateboarding competitions.

Now that women could compete in the sport at the Olympics, Munoz said maybe Ignacia would one day be one of the athletes there.

“So I feel it’s nice for her life,” the father said.

Iggy’s style was “super duper clean” for her age and her size. Despite being a “little ten-year-old” the skateboarder was amazing in the bowl and had some classic signature tricks under her belt.

“Everything she does she just charges it.”

Baumfield said Ignacia was “just gnarly,” and had an amazing attitude.

He said all the young skateboarders in Amber Clyde’s crew up in Auckland were ones to look out for.