On Thursday in Italy’s Ziano di Fimme, the world championship in cross-country skiing in the summer style of roller skiing began, where both adults and juniors (2005 and younger) compete for medals. Several representatives of Latvia had also gone to Italy, and on the first day they generally got good places, but the gold medal won by Raimo Vīgant from Madona was above all.
In mid-July, Raimo showed himself very well at the World Cup stage in the mass start distance in freestyle, winning the first place, which was his seventh individual victory at the World Cup stages in roller skiing. Raimo repeated the same in mid-August at the second stage in Kazakhstan. Therefore, the Madonian was counted among the main favorites for victory.
In the men’s 15km distance, 51 participants started, of which 42 finished. Raimo Vigants, who was one of the four Latvians, remained in the leading group all the time. In the final part, similar to two months ago in his hometown, Madoniets chose a very correct tactic and position, beating the two nearest rivals at the finish line, who have been in the top 30 in the World Cup stages in cross-country skiing in winter. Wiegants won his second medal in roller skiing, and this victory can be called the second biggest success of his career after the 20th place in the sprint at the Olympic Games.
Norwegian Amund Corset, who took 11th and 21st place in the World Cup cross-country skiing stages, won silver, and this is already his third silver, while Estonian Martins Himma, who twice finished in the top 20 in the World Cup cross-country skiing stages, earned bronze. The fourth was the 2021 world champion in roller skiing in the freestyle distance.
Lauris Kaparkalējs from Madonia stayed in the leader group for most of the distance, who finished 33 seconds behind Raimo and won 11th place. Kaparkaleis did a very good job, because he overtook the Estonian sprint champion and Marko Kilpa, who was in the top 30 in cross-country skiing at the World Cup several times, and the Romanian Constantin Pepeni, who was in the top 30 at the Olympic Games five times, and who is also the 2020 World U23 champion. Silvestrs Švaukst finished in 24th place (+2:06), and Niks Saulītis ten positions lower – in 34th place (+3:25).
Another commendable result was achieved by Kitija Auziņa, who in the 15km women’s competition among 35 starters and 29 finishers entered the top ten, ahead of some competitors with whom she skied at the end, and took tenth place (+1:59). Samanta Krampe from Riga finished five minutes behind Auzina and ranked 29th (+6:55). The winner was the titled roller skier from Sweden, Linna Semskaras.
Among the 41 participants in the junior 10km, all three leading Latvian skiers of the V18 group made it into the top 20. Dāvis Kalniņš, representing RSS “Arkādija”, was very close to the top ten, who took 11th place (+39 sec.) and was still in the group from 4th to 11th until 7.5km. place, and Sigulda’s Bruno Bilans, who finished in 13th place, 16 seconds behind his former teammate. Indriķis Circens from Vilakia finished the top twenty (+1:21).
For juniors, 10km 43 started and only one Norwegian did not finish. The winner was the host Anna Maria Gidi, who overtook Swedish Johanna Holmberg, who had fierce competition in Madona in July. Of the two representatives of Latvia, Adriāna Šuminska from Krasova had a better start, who finished in 14th place (+1:03) and who, like Auziņa, overtook some of the competitors who were driving next to her at the end. By the half distance, Linda Kaparkalėja was only 22 seconds behind the leaders, who started losing time to the leaders faster in the second half, but still did not give up more than two and a half minutes (+2:19), occupying the 28th place. Tomorrow, Kaparkalėja will have to try to defend the world junior sprint champion title she won last year.
2024-09-14 03:29:29