World Skate Games 2024: WST Ostia Park World Championship – Quarterfinals Report
World Skate Games 2024: WST Ostia Park World Championship – Quarterfinals Report
The amazing thing about skateboarding at this level is that you could re-run any heat of 8 skaters a couple of times and get different results for each because nobody is holding back.
Everything is pushed to the very edge and so luck and tenacity both play their cards.
Some, like Finland’s Luca Karhu, made it comfortably out of qualifiers but then got tangled up on their opening trick twice, where others like Thomas Augusto turned a bailed backside heelflip into a miraculous below-coping make only to get spat into the wall of the facing volcano on an already-strapped shoulder.
He made the cut to semis regardless and we hope he can give of his wonderful best tomorrow.
If you want to know who the pacemakers are in the Women’s division, then look no further than the two most powerful by some distance: Hinano Kusaki, who on paper was a medal candidate in Paris but could not make it gel there, posted three full runs north of 86 points (!!), while top-placed Raicca Ventura seems to be having one of those moments where everything crystallises at just the right time.
Sitting under them and Naia Laso who we already discussed yesterday are a Japanese triumvirate with precious little between them in terms of difference of ability and all of whom seem likely to progress to the finals.
Add to that a return to top form for Florianoplis’ Yndiara Asp plus the fact both British girls Lilly Strachan and Lola Tambling made it through, and we have the most wide-open Women’s Park field to date- which, from a fan’s perspective, is manna from heaven.
Back to the boys: on-edge Brazilian Pedro Quintas made all three runs for what I suspect is the first time on the WST which means his time to shine may be here, hometown hero Ale Mazzara is looking if anything even better than both here last year and last month at the Olympics, and Basque 13-year old Egoitz Bijueska is eating whatever he wants tonight having almost progressed in first place.
Pipping him to that was Sweden’s Hampus Winberg with the highest quarterfinals score ever on the WST (well spotted, TV’s Marc Churchill), while nail-biter of the night went to his Scandinavian counterpart Viktor Solmunde.
Despite being capable of winning here outright, he left it to his final run to progress in nerve-shredding style; and that was just quarters- join us tomorrow when it all goes up a gear again!
World Skate Press Release
https://moresport.tv/category/roller-sport/video-roller-sport/
