USA DSA 2024 Season Recap: Tagaytay → Tortoreto (and a whole lotta speed)

2024 was one of those seasons where it felt like the crew was everywhere — and more importantly, we showed up on the world stage and came home with hardware.

This year had two major World Skate pillars for downhill & luge:

• World Skate Downhill Skateboarding & Street Luge World Championships (Tagaytay, Philippines)

• World Skate Games Italia 2024 (Tortoreto, Italy)

Here’s how it all went down and what we accomplished.

Tagaytay, Philippines: World Championships

World Skate’s postponed 2023 World Championships finally went down Feb 22–25, 2024 in Tagaytay, Philippines, on the Sampaloc–Talisay road.

This course was no joke:

• 2,300m track with roughly a ~300m drop

• Sweepers + hairpins all day

• Speeds around 80 km/h were in the mix

World Skate reported 80+ competitors from 18 nations, so it was a real international throwdown.

Team USA / USA DSA highlights in Tagaytay

We had some huge performances that set the tone for the rest of the year:

• Samantha Marsteller — Silver (Women’s Street Luge)

• Morgan Owens — 4th (Men’s Downhill Skateboarding)

• Owen Fox — 6th (Men’s Downhill Skateboarding)

That’s a podium plus two top-six standup finishes at Worlds — a solid “we’re here” moment early in the season.

The Road to Italy: Qualifiers, rankings, and building the roster

On the USA DSA side, we kept the pathway clear and performance-based.

Qualifying into the 2024 USA Downhill Team

Our World Skate Games selection criteria for Italy was based on athletes’ best 2 results out of 3 marquee events:

• Knox Mountain Downhill

• Tour de Maryhill

• Soldiers of Downhill

Those results rolled into the US Downhill Championship standings, giving everyone a simple target: race, score, stack points.

2024 USA DSA Team roster (Downhill + Street Luge)

By the time we locked in for Worlds, Team USA/USA DSA had a deep lineup across disciplines, including:

• Downhill Skateboarding: Alicia Fillback, Julia Barboza, Marcie Morgan, Loryn Roberson, Ashley Winecoff, Tim Del Rosario, Max Capps, Owen Fox, Morgan Owens, Daniel Engel

• Street Luge: Sabrina Riffenburgh, Amanda Haaland, Samantha Marsteller, Angelica Jones, Ryan Farmer, Cristian Marez, Chris McBride

That depth matters — because at Worlds, it’s never “one run and done.” It’s time trials, heats, chaos management, and staying fast when it counts.

World Skate Games Italia 2024: Tortoreto got LOUD

Later in the year, the whole downhill circus rolled into Tortoreto (Abruzzo, Italy) for World Skate Games Italia 2024 — and it was massive.

World Skate described:

• Nearly 300 riders across downhill skateboard, street luge, and downhill inline

• A week that started with torrential rain (mud/debris on course), then flipped to clean, pristine race conditions once the sun came out

What we accomplished in Italy

This is the headline: two more World Championship podiums for the USA.

• Ryan Farmer — Silver (Men’s Street Luge)

• Sabrina Riffenburgh — Silver (Women’s Street Luge)

That’s the kind of result that backs up the work we put in all season — and it shows the world U.S. street luge is seriously in the mix.

And for standup? The racing was razor-thin — World Skate even noted a photo-finish decision in a men’s semi involving Owen Fox. That’s how tight that bracket was.

So… what did USA DSA accomplish in 2024?

Put it all together, and 2024 was a legit statement season:

• 3 World-level silver medals across two major World Skate events

  • Tagaytay: Samantha Marsteller (Silver)

  • Italy: Ryan Farmer (Silver) + Sabrina Riffenburgh (Silver)

• Top-6 standup results at Worlds (Tagaytay) with Morgan Owens (4th) and Owen Fox (6th)

• A clear, points-based qualifying pathway and published rankings that gave riders a real target and a real ladder to climb

That’s not just “we attended.” That’s “we competed, we delivered, and we built a stronger pipeline.”