The world championships in cross-country skiing in the summer style of roller skiing began in Italy on Thursday, when participants competed in the freestyle distance with an interval start. As we previously reported, this championship started very well for Latvia, because on the first day Raimo Vīgants won the 15km freestyle with a joint start and won the gold medal, becoming the world champion for the first time.
On the second day, Linda Kaparkalėja secured a medal for Latvia, who did not feel well yesterday in the mass start distance and slowed down in the second half of the distance, saving her strength for the sprint. Kaparkalėjas started the qualification strongly, setting the fastest time, ahead of the nearest competitor, Anna Maria Gidi from Italy, by half a second. Without problems, she overcame the round of 16, where she made it to the top 16 of the qualifiers, and the quarter-finals, entering the semi-final four. And there unexpectedly, the Madonie lost to the Croatian Leona Garača, who later lost to the host Gidi in the final. Linda had a better start, but she lacked speed at the end, and the representative of Croatia overtook her, preventing the Latvian from repeating last year’s success.
Therefore, Kaparkalėja had to fight for the third place in the small final, where she managed to beat the Norwegian Emilija Lija, thus not remaining without a medal this year either, only this time earning a bronze in her account. Among the 29 participants, Adriana Šuminski from Kráslav, who started better than ours yesterday, showed the 21st time in the qualifying sprint, missing the elimination round or sixteenth by 0.4 seconds.
The men in the adult group had the strongest competition, where among the 35 participants, all four Latvians overcame the qualification and entered the round of 16, of which only Raimo Vigantas managed to reach the quarterfinals. Wiegants, who became the champion on Thursday, lost to Jostein Olafsen from Norway, the medalist of the world championship in roller skiing sprint, in the quarter finals in a very similar fight, taking the 5th place in the end.
In the round of 16, Lauris Kaparkalējs met two-time world champion Ragnar Andresen from Norway, who was in better shape than in July in Madona, and lost to the Norwegian title holder, taking 9th place in the end and finishing just ahead of Sylvester Schwaukst, who lost to Italian Francesco Becki. The fourth man from Madonia, Niks Saulītis, finished the sprint in 13th place, losing in the round of 16 to Olafsen, who was “done wrong” by Vigant. In the final, Norwegian Olafsen was beaten and Emanuele Beki earned another title.
For women, Kitija Auziņa made it into the top ten again and was close to the quarter-finals, who took ninth place in the competition of 27 participants. Auziņa showed the eighth time in the qualification, but in the round of 16, she lost 0.3 seconds to the German Melina Schotes, who sprinted slower in the qualification, settling for the 9th place. Riga’s Samanta Krampe also competed in the round of 16, losing to Estonia’s Taylor Ojaste and taking 11th place.
For junior boys, among the 34 participants, all three Latvians relatively safely made it to the round of 16, which was overcome only by Dāvis Kalniņš, who had to fight for a place in the quarter-finals with Bruno Bilan from Sigulda. Next came Ville Juterdahls, the owner of the second qualification time from Sweden, who won the PK stage in Madona in July, where Kalniņas had the third place. This time too, the Swede was superior, thus Dāvis took 7th place in the qualification.
In the end, the other two of ours also took the same places in some qualification. Bilan got 10. place, but Indriķis Circens from Vilaaki ranked right behind him in 11th place, losing to the Swiss in the round of 16.
On Saturday, the world championship in roller skiing in Italy will continue with the team sprint, where Latvia has the opportunity to compete for medals in all four groups.
2024-09-15 03:12:26