On the first day of the competition, in the giant slalom, some of the Latvians were in the sixth place, but Artūrs Liskovs from Ola was third, winning the bronze medal for Latvia. In the second discipline, the special slalom, which was postponed from Friday to Saturday due to rain, Latvian skateboarders started even more successfully, winning three medals, which is half of the total of six (three for men and three for women), including the first gold.
27 women and 59 men competed in the special slalom. Japan, Canada, USA, Brazil, Australia were represented, but from European countries Italy, Great Britain, Norway, Czech Republic, Germany, France and Latvia were represented. The competition in this discipline started with the qualification, where the best eight went to the quarter-finals and fought for medals.
Riga’s Gustavs Gailītis, who took seventh place in the giant slalom on Thursday, provided our country with the victory and the first gold at these World Games in skateboarding. Gailītis, who actively participated in the “Izskrien Rīga” running series all summer and showed skateboarding demonstrations, showed the fastest time in the qualification, declaring himself among the main favorites.
In the first two elimination rounds, Gailītis had to fight with other Latvians. In the quarter-finals, he overtook Artur Liskov, who won the bronze in the giant slalom on the first day, in the sum of two runs, both of them being faster in one of the runs, and in the semi-finals he dealt with Tom Dreiblat, who had shown the fifth time in the qualification, but in the quarter-final he had beaten the Frenchman Christopher Dupont, who had gone slightly faster in the qualification. In the final, this year’s absolute European champion from Riga relatively convincingly beat giant slalom champion Joe McLaren from the USA. Consequently, Gailītis won the first gold.
Gustavs was not the only one to get on the podium, as Dreiblatt convincingly defeated giant slalom runner-up Orion Lerman from the USA in the small final, or battle for bronze. Jānis Kuzmins also had a good chance for a medal, who showed the second time in the qualification, but in the first race against Lerman in the quarter-finals, he made a mistake at the start and received a disqualification. In the second race, the multiple world champion from Olaine was more than half a second faster than the silver medalist in the giant slalom, which is a lot, but could not overcome the deficit of one second in the first race, ending up in 5th place. Meanwhile, Liskov’s eighth place this time in the competition of 59 participants.
Latvia’s third medal on the second day of the competition and the first in the women’s competition was won by Andija Līga Rūja, who fought until the final, where she lost to the giant slalom champion Karolina Vojtova from the Czech Republic. Ruja lost a lot in the first race, and fell in the second, but still got the silver medal. Anna Momika Gailīte was also among the top eight after qualifying, but the sister of the champion Gustava lost to her rival in the quarter-finals and ended the special slalom competition in fifth place.
More than half of the competitors were overtaken by Dominika Ozoliņa and Elīza Gailīte, who fought to get into the top ten, taking tenth and eleventh place respectively.
Sunday will be the last day of competition at the World Skateboarding Games, with participants competing in hybrid slalom, where Latvians will try to win medals.
2024-09-16 05:46:40