Yuto Horigome has added another viral highlight to his Street League Skateboarding reel, landing a tornado 270 nose slide first attempt during a qualifier round and scoring 9.5 � a trick the broadcast team immediately said would "break the internet."
The run lifted Horigome to 37.2 overall, giving him what the commentary described as an eight-point cushion over the next-best skater on the leaderboard at that point in the qualifying window. The Olympic gold medallist did it with two attempts still remaining.
"THE TORNADO. TORNADO IN THE FLESH," one commentator exclaimed as Horigome rode away clean. "I really didn't think we'd see that."
The tornado 270 nose slide is a trick that only a handful of skaters on Earth can credibly attempt, let alone land on a first try in a contest. Horigome's version required a full rotation into the feature before settling into the nose-slide grind and pivoting back out � the kind of sequence that typically takes multiple attempts even from the sport's elite.
"Yuto tornado 270 nose slide 270, that's crazy," the broadcast team said on the replay. "Broke the internet with that one, and then does it first try in the contest. 9.5, 37.2 overall score."
The 9.5 score from the judges sits near the top of the SLS scoring scale, reserved for rare combinations of trick difficulty and clean execution. Horigome's run, according to the broadcast, followed up on four previous runs all scoring in the nines, building what they called a stacked leaderboard margin heading into the final qualifying attempts.
"He has four nines. Well up in the nines. Eight ahead of Yuko. He still has two more attempts," a commentator said. "That was shocking."
Horigome's contest resume already includes the Olympic gold in men's street skateboarding at Tokyo 2020, along with multiple SLS world championship titles. But even against his own catalogue, a tornado-variation nose slide scored first try on contest day lands as a new benchmark.
The 2026 SLS qualifier window has also underscored the depth of the Japanese contingent. Horigome is now competing against countrymen Sora Shirai, Toa Sasaki, Ginwoo Onodera and Kyrie Netsuki � all of whom are dropping nine-plus scores in the same qualifying rounds.
That competitive pressure has visibly shifted what skaters are willing to try on day one. "I guess I did kind of call the hub out, but I didn't see him try that at all," one commentator admitted. "That is insane."
With the qualifier still live and Horigome's two follow-up attempts in reserve, the real question is what he saves for the finals draw. A 37.2 qualifier run with 9.5 individual trick peaks gives him the freedom to swing at even harder combinations without risking his seeding.
The tornado 270 nose slide landing also has a secondary effect that SLS broadcasters flagged on air � it visibly recalibrates what the rest of the field believes is landable, pushing rivals to attempt tricks they'd have otherwise saved for final runs. For a format built around score-per-trick margins, that psychological shift often proves decisive in the later rounds.