X Games: gold for Damestoy in skateboarding, bronze for Dandois in BMX one year before the Olympics

2023-05-14 13:09:42

This is the Holy Grail for all practitioners of “extreme sports”. The X Games 2023 have been taking place for a few days in Chiba, a suburb of Tokyo (Japan). And two French people shone this Sunday, very early in the morning for France with a gold medal in skateboarding for Edouard Damestoy and bronze in BMX for Matthias Dandois, one of the 24 “Coups de coeur” of the Parisian for the Paris 2024 Olympics.

Not a first for Damestoy. In 2022 in Los Angeles (United States), he became the first French gold medalist at the X Games in the “megapark” discipline. This time, it’s in “vert” (the equivalent of a half-pipe in surfing) that he takes first place in Japan. Double world champion, the 27-year-old Bordelais is also aiming to qualify for the Paris Olympics next year.

For Matthias Dandois, on the other hand, “the goal of a lifetime” has come true, as he says himself. The “flatland” specialist (BMX tricks performed on flat ground) climbed the X Games podium this weekend, just ahead of his compatriot Alex Jumelin, who won silver in 2022. Dandois, 34, can show a broad smile, a few months after a malleolus injury.

This summer, in Glasgow (Scotland), he will be aiming for a tenth world championship title on his BMX. And we will find him, for sure, at the Paris Olympics for a demonstration of “flat”, this specialty not being part of the medal winning sports.