The Man with One Wheel

21-year-old Dom Williams jumping off his favourite ledge on UC Campus. Source: Elsie Williams / Canta.  

At 15, most Kiwi kids are worrying about passing their end-of-year NCEA exam, but for North Carolina teen Dom Williams, his main concern was how to spend the $10,000 he’d earned after winning the One Wheel world championships. 

Now a product design student at the UC, Williams rides his One Wheel around campus with ease, turning heads and catching the attention of everyone he passes. 

Williams' journey with One Wheel started when he was 14. After saving up enough money, he bought his first board, simply out of curiosity. While competing in a kayaking event in Vail, Colorado, he noticed a One Wheel competition happening nearby—it was the world championships. Despite having only ridden for a few months, he entered the tricks competition, coming in third, and finished fourth in the overall time trials. But because of his age, he wasn’t allowed to race in the main event.  

“I was pretty mad for like a year but then thought, I’m just going to win it next year,” he said.  

And in 2019, at 15 years old, that’s exactly what he did. 

“There were a lot of older men that were pretty pissed off a 15-year-old was beating them,” Williams said. His youthful presence on the scene unsettled the more seasoned competitors, many of whom resorted to mind games in an effort to throw him off.  

“Everybody would be like, ‘oh, you're looking slow, Dom’… It was quite an intense environment.” 

After coming second in 2020, Williams faced a tough loss. “Because you’re 16, and there’s a bunch of dudes you used to look up to trying to mess with you,” he said, reflecting on the experience. Things came to a head when a 30-year-old rival got in his face at the post-event party, threatening his spot on their team which Williams said was the final straw.  

“I approached my friends at One Wheel and was like, ‘yo guys, I don’t really want to work with these dudes anymore’. And since then, they’ve helped me out a lot, flying me back to the States and letting me try out their new boards.” 

The competition Williams won is called Race for the Rail, the One Wheel world championship where top riders race down a ski resort to claim the title. What began in 2015 as a casual race in a carpark has since become one of the fastest-growing sports, even getting airtime on ESPN.  

Growing up in North Carolina, Williams always sought adrenaline-fueled sports. One Wheel entered his life alongside kayaking and stand-up paddleboarding down rapids. But once he got a taste of victory, there was no slowing down.  

Today, Williams is the first person sponsored by One Wheel and each summer, they fly him back to the States to lead college marketing programmes at top universities like UCLA and Berkeley. However, after relocating to New Zealand where he holds citizenship, Williams has temporarily stepped back from competitive racing.  

Bringing his One Wheel to UC and the Ōtautahi mountain bike trails has sparked plenty of curiosity among students. The boards are engineered to be as intuitive as possible but come with a steep price tag.  

“I get why I don’t see many students rolling around on them,” Williams said. To make the sport more accessible, he regularly imports boards and sells them locally, bringing in four or five a month. He’s also acquired the necessary permits to import  

the dangerous goods inside the batteries and taught himself how to repair them, setting up a workshop in the garage of his student flat.

Canta Writer Elsie Williams moments before doing the splits on UC Campus. Source: Dom Williams. 

Despite the high costs, Williams is eager to see more people join the One Wheel community in New Zealand. 

He turned up to the interview with an extra board, offering me the chance to try it out. I won’t lie—I was terrified. The thought of embarrassing myself in front of my fellow students made me queasy. But his calm, collected nature made the experience a lot less daunting. 

After a few ungraceful falls, I started to get the hang of it. Although, disembarking from the board did put me in the splits a couple of times—a skill I wasn’t hoping to acquire. But I’m clearly not alone in wanting to try it; Williams is regularly asked if people can have a turn. 

It’s easy to see why he’s so passionate about One Wheel. Even as he shifts his focus to new challenges in life, the thrill of riding—and sharing that experience with others—remains at the heart of who he is.  

Whether shredding UC’s corners or cruising through Hagley Park, Williams proves that even when you step away from the competitive world, passion and community can keep you rolling forward.