Remarkably, against the grain of weather throughout the week which was borderline inescapable sunshine, Saturday saw our first downpour right at the end of the Women’s first heat. That heat was one of 7 not 8 entrants, after Spain’s Afrika Criado Oliva retired hurt during practice- we wish her a speedy recovery here. The standout from the first heat was Aoi Uemura who recovered from practice slam to not only put in a heater of a first run but hyped the crowd up to urge her into a heelflip front board on the long rail during her best trick section. It takes a lot of poise to do something like that, and at 13 years old you rather suspect a star is born there and then.
Ph: Jake Darwen
The second Women’s heat was a tale of two halves, in that all 8 women hadcomplete runs and there was a lot of consistency shown in the first 3 rounds of best trick until Coco Yoshizawa took a grisly hubba slam which required medical attention- after which, the fizz went out of the attempts somewhat with Miyu Ito and Momiji Nishiya both missing all 3 of their last trick attempts and Chloe Covell rejecting her first 50-50 to kick flip out attempt only to be denied on her subsequent two. Even so, there can be no doubt the Women’s standard is still going up, with Momiji Nishiya in particular looking crisp with growing pop and confidence, Gabi Mazetto skating with more power than anyone else and Yumeka Oda the most consistent in best trick, landing 4 of 5 attempts.
The break for Men’s heat one to begin allowed a kind of reset and Sora Shirai set an early tempo with the first 90+ run score of the Semi Finals and then followed it up with the first 90+ best trick score of the evening too (backside 180 to switch front crook). Jagger Eaton replied straight after with a 90+ of his own (backside flip fakie nosegrind) and repeated the feat three attempts later with a switch backside nosebluntslide. That’s when things started to get crazy.
Ph: Jake Darwen
Men’s heat number 2 saw more drama than a teenage disco: Toa Sasaki had a slam that would have hospitalised him had he not been wearing a helmet; Kelvin Hoefler employed contest smarts to reject a half-cab back smith revert only to do it perfectly next go; a firework display started out of nowhere nearby halfway through; Aurelien Giraud had two 90+ best tricks (backside flip and hardflip revert, both over the hubba) and Ginwoo Onodera- needing a miracle- delivered one on his last roll of the dice, celebrated too early, lost his balance, and rolled his bad wrist again. Now, somehow, the top 8 in each division have to reach deep down inside to do it all again tomorrow.
Join us LIVE tomorrow at 7.30PM CET (Google for time differences where you are) on the Olympic Skateboarding Youtube channel as this mighty stop on the Road To Paris reaches its crescendo!