On the first day, Raimo Vīgants won the 15km freestyle with a mass start, but on the second day, Linda Kaparkalėja took the medal for Latvia, who was in third place in the junior sprint and who, unfortunately, could not go to the starting team in the sprint. Also on the third day of the competition, Latvia won a medal, which was ensured by Raimo Vīgants, the 20th place winner of the Olympic Games in the sprint, and Lauris Kaparkalējs, the champion of the European Youth Winter Olympic Festival in the sprint, who were the best and became the world champions in the team sprint in freestyle.
It was a team competition, where two participants started in each team, but it couldn’t really be called a sprint, because in the adult groups, each participant had to complete a 2.2 km circle five times, taking turns. So each traveled 11km, and the team 22km in total. In winter, in the team sprint in cross-country skiing, each participant has three stages, and the circle is more appropriate for a sprint – about one and a half kilometers.
Raimo Vīgants and Lauri Kaparkalēju had won the team sprint at the World Cup stage in Madona in July, thus they were among the main contenders for victory in the 14-team competition. Latvians were always in the leading group. When Raimo passed the baton for the penultimate time to Lauri, who started his final fifth stage, there were six teams in the leader group. Then the Italian broke away, but Kaparkalei and the Swede managed to keep up, thus leaving three teams in the fight for victory.
Kaparkalējs, this year’s Latvian roller skiing sprint champion and winner of the World Cup’s prized place, arrived first for the last shift, sending Vīgant to the leading positions in the final and decisive stage. At first, Raimo took the lead, but the Madonian allowed it to be taken over by the home team, but in the middle of the lap, the Latvian was again in the foreground. On the climb, the Italian made a dash, but Raimo had expected it.
Vigants, who won the mass start on Thursday, allowed the home team to be in the foreground on the downhill, because there was a headwind, but at the finish line, he used his excellent finishing qualities and overtook the representative of Italy, bringing Latvia and himself the second gold medal in this championship and also in his career. This is also Kaparkalej’s second gold in the world championships in roller skiing, however, the first in the adult group, because in 2022 he became the world junior sprint champion. The Swedes won bronze, the Romanians finished fourth, but the Norwegians only finished fifth.
Good performance also for juniors Dāvis Kalniņš and Bruno Bilan, who won 4th place in the competition of nine teams. Here, too, the Swedes and the Italians fought for victory, with the Scandinavians winning gold and the home team winning silver. Bronze medals were won by Ukrainians. Kalniņš and Bilan finished very stable in 4th place, convincingly beating the 5th place winners from Kazakhstan, as well as being 27 seconds behind the top three.
A place in the top six for Latvia also in the adult group for women, where Kitija Auziņa started this time together with junior Adriana Šuminska. The representatives of Latvia overcame the qualification among 13 teams and entered the final, where they took 6th place. Almost five minutes separated the winners from Sweden, but the nearest rivals, Kazakhstan, were ahead by 40 seconds.
2024-09-16 10:15:55