‘She’s a freak, she’s just at another level’: How Arisa Trew stunned the world
After her history-making gold at the Paris Olympics, Arisa Trew has taken women’s skateboarding to an ’extraordinary’ place. Her Gold Coast coach and friends reveal how unique her skills are.
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She’s just rolled into history as Australia’s youngest-ever Olympic gold medallist but at the Gold Coast’s Level Up skateboard and BMX academy, 14-year-old skate sensation Arisa Trew is just one of the kids.
Despite her giddy glories in Paris, a social media shout-out from American skateboarding legend Tony Hawk after she became the first female skater to land a 900 (a gravity-defying, mind-boggling, two-and-a-half-rotation aerial spin) and career earnings in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, there are no airs or graces about Arisa as she hangs out with her mates at the academy – a brick and tin warehouse distinctive only for the giant skate ramp outside – in the backblocks of the Currumbin industrial estate on the southern Glitter Strip.
Her long, dark hair is dyed a purple hue and she’s dressed in shorts, T-shirt, black and white checked socks and battered, pink hi-top skate sneakers from global streetwear brand Vans, one of her major sponsors.
Classes are about to start at Level Up, a unique educational/training centre where students hit the school books in the morning before hitting the ramps in the afternoon.
It’s a humble yet groundbreaking facility, with no government funding or national skate body support, that’s churning out champions like neighbouring factories in the industrial estate are churning out products.
Arisa is one of a couple of dozen students sitting in the morning sun with their school bags, snacks and skateboards while Level Up founder Trevor Ward and his teachers and instructors give their daily pre-school pep talk.
“Today, we’ve got a lot on, we need to make sure you guys are doing exactly what you’ve gotta do,” Ward, a former professional skater, tells them.
“BMX riders, there were a few guys hanging out here yesterday – you do that again, you get a week in class. It’s not that hard to go and ride. Would you rather do class or would you rather be riding? Let’s get in, let’s get focused.”
Arisa is given a leave pass from class to chat with Qweekend, and we grab a seat at a bench table under the tin-roofed pergola.
She says it’s been a whirlwind of media engagements and public appearances since returning from Paris. A few days after we speak she’s off overseas again for the World Skate Games in Rome, where she again won gold.
“There’s been a lot of media,” she says, her almond eyes darting back and forth to her skateboard resting up against a nearby table.
“It kind of sometimes cuts into my school time and my skating time. When it’s my school time, it’s okay, but when it’s my skating time, it’s a bit annoying. But we got to go to Sydney on the weekend for some media and I got to skate Bondi and go swim at the beach, so that was pretty fun.”
Born in Cairns, Arisa has been skating for just six years, after moving to the Gold Coast with her parents, Simon and Aiko, when she was two.
“I started surfing but I thought the water in winter was too cold,” she says.
“So then my dad took me to the skate park because it was basically surfing on land. And then I just started really liking it from there.
“I’d always skated on the footpath with my dad, so I kind of knew how to skate, but I just didn’t really ever take it to the ramps until I was eight. And then I kind of already knew what to do, but just not on the ramp. So then my dad just helped me learn to drop in and do ‘rock to fakie’ (a basic ramp manoeuvre).
“I still surfed after that … but I just didn’t want to surf in the winter.”
Ward says Arisa was already a competent skater when she enrolled in the Level Up academy in 2022 at the start of high school, joining his now 16-year-old daughter and Trew’s best friend, Jada, who had also made the transition from surfing to skateboarding.
“I said ‘just give me a year’ and within six months, she was the third best in the world,’’ he says.
“She came in and changed the face of skateboarding. She was doing 540s (a vertical ramp move involving a one-and-a-half rotation aerial spin), which no other girl was doing, and she was doing switch skating (ambidextrous stance), which no girl had done.’’
Arisa was already turning heads when, in July last year, she became the first female skater to land a 720 (two-rotation spin) in competition at the Tony Hawk Vert Alert in Salt Lake City, Utah. Hawk, who first pulled off the trick in 1985, told his nine million Instagram followers that Arisa’s effort had “brought the house down”.
She went 180 degrees better in May this year, when she again made history as the first female to execute a 900, prompting another Hawk herogram: “Arisa Trew just became the first female to land a 900. Glass ceilings are so 2023. Congrats.”
By then, Arisa was within weeks of qualifying for the Paris Olympics. It was a feat remarkable not just for her young age but also because she got there despite battling a fractured pelvis for part of 2023 – an injury she suffered trying to push a 540 rotation too hard, and then kept on aggravating.
“It was kind of hard because I didn’t really let it heal, so I just kept hurting it,” she says.
“I would have a week off and think it was fine, even though I was still in so much pain – but I just wanted to skate.”
In the end, Ward put his foot down and insisted she have a complete six-week break from skating over summer.
“Every day, I’d be in the office and she’d be down here hanging out going: ‘Come on, I just want to skate’,” he says.
“And I’m like: ‘No, trust me, it’ll do you good.’ And it did. She came back and she got fourth in her first comp and then she’s won everything since.”
Ward regards Arisa as a second daughter.
“She’s my daughter’s best friend, so she’s hanging out at our place all the time,” he says.
“We’ve got this really good relationship, like she’s one of my kids. I know when she’s not feeling right with stuff and all of that.
“Her parents, Simon and Aiko, just trust that I know that as well. And they’re happy and stoked we have that relationship to get her where she is today.’’
Despite the demands of international competition cutting into her school time, Ward says Arisa is a “straight A” student.
“She’s unbelievable, but just because she’s missed so much school, she’s gotta make up some stuff,” he says. “She’s like: ‘I don’t care if I fail Year 9’ and I said: ‘I do – and you’re not going to’.’’
It’s part of what Ward says is a strict academic focus at Level Up, which partners with the Riverside Christian College at Maryborough to deliver online lessons. The academy employs three teachers of its own to supervise classes for primary and high school students, who study for three hours in the morning and then skate or ride all afternoon under the eye of coaches including Ward.
“If they don’t get their study done, they can’t go and ride,” he says.
“What I see in the normal school system is that kids either don’t have a passion or if they do, it’s swept under the rug and no one really cares about it. And what we’ve been able to do here is enable that passion to get the best out of the kids with their education.”
Arisa says of Level Up: “We’re definitely all really lucky to have this – it’s just really cool – and I think we’re all really grateful for it because we just get to skate and do what we love the most.
“It’s not too difficult because I feel more switched on in the morning to do school, and then in the afternoon I’m ready to skate.”
Asked what makes Arisa so good, Ward nominates three factors.
“She can translate whatever I say to her, she has amazing body awareness and she barely ever says no,” he says.
“She’s just so attentive; she listens, and she wants to learn. She wants it more than anyone.
“Yes, she’s a natural, but she works damn hard. She’ll do her four hours skating here and then she’ll go to the skate park for two or three hours. It’s time on the board, you know what I mean? She’s probably done 20,000 hours on a board and she’s only 14. She just skates so much. She’s got a couple of tricks that not even the men have done. It’s crazy. She skates with the best men in the world and they’re like, ‘she’s a freak’. She’s just at another level.
“She’s taken girls’ skateboarding to a place that’s extraordinary. I don’t know another girl that will do a 900 for years. It might happen, but I don’t see it. Arisa’s changed the sport.”
Arisa was already making “crazy” money before the Olympics, Ward says, with prizemoney and endorsements from the likes of Vans, Monster Energy and helmet company S1 which has produced an Arisa-signature pink and black checked helmet.
“Her mum still works at the (Gold Coast) airport as a cook and her dad’s a photographer who travels with her to events. Her mum comes when she can get time off work. They’re a humble family,’’ he says.
Arisa says much of her prizemoney goes towards paying for her travel, which is handy, given her jetsetting international schedule.
“I’m pretty sure I’ll be away ’til November because I’m going to Rome and America, then I’m going to X Games in Japan, then back to America to train,” she says, outlining her post-Olympics itinerary.
“And then me and Jada have a competition in Brazil, which I’m really excited for because it was me and Jada’s dream country to go to, and now we get to go to it together and compete. So I’m really excited to do that. And I’m probably back to America and then I’m not sure where.”
Arisa’s goal is to be a pro skater, compete at the 2032 Brisbane Olympics and, when she’s older – ‘like maybe 50 or something’ – become a skate coach.
In the meantime, she’s happy to be skating, hanging out with her friends and inspiring other young daredevils to reach for the stars.
“I think it’s really cool being a role model, because most of the kids are even younger than I was when I started skateboarding,” she says.
“They’re all shredding and having fun and we like to hang out with them all. And that’s so cool because they’re going to be the future generation, which is what I love to see.”
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