Chloe Covell: The 3 Tricks That Explain Why She's in a League of Her Own

There are skaters who are good. There are skaters who win contests. And then there's Chloe Covell, who's operating on a whole other level.

The 16-year-old Australian — born in 2010, just so we're clear — has a trick list that would make most male street pros squirm. But what makes her tricks stand out isn't the technical difficulty. It's how she does them.

1. Her backside tailslide switch bigspin out

Plenty of skaters have a backside tailslide on lock. The switch bigspin out is the kind of exit that sends most of them running. Stacking the two on full-size ledges — not scaled-down contest obstacles — is another story entirely.

What sets Covell apart on this one: her balance through the tailslide is dialed, she never rushes the exit, and the bigspin lands exactly where it's supposed to. Tech, control, style. No trade-offs.

2. Her nollie heelflips

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The nollie heelflip exposes a skater's level instantly. It takes a coordination between the nollie pop and the heel flick that's genuinely hard to build. Most people end up with something that's short on height or off-axis.

Covell's nollie heelflips go high, come out clean, and her feet land right back on the bolts. She throws them in lines, linked with other tricks, and none of it looks like work. That's the mark of a trick that's actually part of her skating, not just memorized.

3. Her manual combos

Manuals are the ultimate test of balance and board control. Combos — stringing tricks in and out of a manual — show you own the board and can read the terrain a few beats ahead.

Covell's manual combos are the closest thing women's street has to what Daewon Song was doing in his most creative years. She invents combinations, pulls them off in tight spaces, and closes out lines with a precision that demands respect.

What actually sets her apart

Beyond the individual tricks, Chloe Covell has something few women — and few men — in skating have: she doesn't skate "like a girl trying to skate like a dude." She skates like herself.

There's no visible effort to prove anything. No posturing that says "look how good I am for my age, for my gender." Just skating — fluid, natural, with a style she obviously built over thousands of hours of rolling around for the fun of it.

She's 16. She's probably in the process of becoming one of the best skaters of all time. And most people outside of skating still have no idea who she is.

What the résumé says

One number to frame the whole thing. In July 2023, at 13, Covell became the youngest gold medalist in X Games history, in street. That wasn't a one-off fluke.

She's been stacking titles ever since. Street gold at X Games Chiba in 2024, at Osaka and Salt Lake City in 2025, and Chiba again in early 2026. In between, she lined up for street at the Paris 2024 Games. That kind of consistency at that age almost never happens.

The consistency is the striking part. Other riders have peaks, good days and bad ones. Covell brings the same level contest after contest, on different course layouts, in different countries.

Why it matters for skaters over here

We spent twenty years watching women's street from a distance, back when it even made the videos. Now a kid is bending full-size ledges to her will with a style plenty of male pros would kill for. The bar moved, permanently.

She's from Tweed Heads, a coastal Australian town with no real skate history. No legendary plaza, no heavyweight crew behind her. Just hours and hours on curbs and neighborhood parks. Puts every excuse right where it belongs.

For the French scene, that's a useful marker. Our young riders are growing up with Covell in front of them, not with the idea that real street belongs to the guys. If you want to know where skating is headed, watch what this Australian is doing. Her full run is laid out on Wikipedia.

The detail that gives it away

Watch her feet on landing, not the trick. They come down dead on the bolts, every time, without that little correction that betrays the effort. That kind of cleanliness is what separates a good rider from a skater who'll define an era.

Style doesn't show up in a slow-mo freeze frame. You feel it when a line rolls through with no dead air. Covell has that. And no amount of training really gives it to you: it gets built rolling for the fun of it, thousands of hours deep, nowhere near a judge.

Search "Chloe Covell" on YouTube. Watch any clip. You'll get it.