Keegan Palmer - Australia - qualified 

BUDAPEST - Comments from Australia’s Keegan Palmer after scoring 94.94 to win the OQS Budapest Skateboarding Men’s Park final on Sunday and qualify for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

Keegan Palmer - Australia - qualified second (overall ranking position)

On sharing the podium with close friends Tom Schaar and Tate Carew of the USA:

“It doesn’t get much better. It’s like a script was written and it all played out. All three of us were just back and forth through prelims, semis and finals. Me and Tom battling on the first run, and then on the second run today, it was an absolute experience."

On Schaar qualifying for Paris 2024:

“I’m just so happy for Tom. He needed a first or a second today and he got it. I’m just so stoked. I’m just proud of my homie who I get to do these contests with, now I get to see him in Paris. And I know he’s super stoked.”

On bumping Schaar down to second with his second run:

“There was definitely some stress levels there. We’re all really close friends and it would have been not sick at all if I was the reason he didn’t get to go to Paris. But he told us yesterday that if he’s going to make it to the Olympics, he wants to make it with us skating at our best, and that’s what we all did today. We all put down solid runs and the boys are on top one, two three.”

On what is next:

“I’ve got first day of X Games practice on Wednesday, so I’m going straight to that, and then we have a month until Paris. So we’re all over the place. But I think doing a lot of competitions, yes there’s the risk factor of hurting yourself, but keeping up that level is good, keeping the consistency of contest skating.”

On what he has got planned for Paris 2024:

“I’ve got some tricks hidden in my sleeve that I was saving for Tokyo and didn’t do in Tokyo, and I’ve got some new stuff that I’ve been saving for Paris, so I’m gonna come out swinging in Paris, that’s for sure.”

On his winning run:

“I really like first two walls of my run, rolling into the alley-oop frontside air and then right into the alley-oop frontside kickflip lien, which is one of my favourite feeling tricks in the world.”

OIS cb/xl/rm