By this point in the 2024 Park World Championship, a lot of the longest days are behind us and you sense the energy and tempo begin to really pick up in what we might call the business-end of proceedings.
Thirty-two skaters were left out of a field of over a hundred, and half of that thirty-two went out of the contest tonight. We have certainly talked before about the excitement of semifinal day on the WST, but as filmer Alex Kissinger pointed out this morning: the finals- while being the crescendo of the week- are actually over quite quickly
In that sense, and certainly among the people who have followed the Tour along the way around the globe, semifinal is its own hype, precisely because- as well as the established heavy-hitters who know how to strategise by pacing themselves, you also get the upstarts who go all-in right from the thumbs-up and pay no heed to the conventions of developing things run-by-run. On top of that, you get a couple of skaters who have barged their way out of an earlier heat with a golden ticket of a performance and have nothing to lose by throwing caution to the wind. This mix tends to have evaporated by finals- and that makes the semis something like a Wild West shootout.
Sailing into her first women’s finals is the rapidly-improving French youngster Nana Taboulet, who joins another newcomer in the form of Great Britain’s Lilly Strachan who needed a backside kickflip indy in the deep end on her third run to guarantee progression despite not having made it in practice or her second run and was swept away on a tide of emotion when she did. Brazil’s Raicca Ventura who was all-but-certain to advance hurt her knee on an uncharacteristic bail during her first run and limped off after qualifying; we hope it is not too serious. As expected, both the mightily-impressive Hinano Kusaki and bunched-together teammates Asahi Kaihara, Mizuho Hasegawa and Mei Sugawara all comfortable made it into the last 8, while the back-to-top-form Naia Laso made it through in first- and looks like she is back as if she was never away.
Men’s semifinal saw a reversal of fortune for the Scandinavian duo from yesterday’s quarters: Denmark’s Viktor Solmunde who made hard work for himself getting thus far sailed into the finals with a perfect opening run as the first to drop in. Hampus Winberg, in pole throughout so far, left it until the last run of the night to complete one of his lightning charges and secure his spot at the expense of Pedro Quintas who had almost done enough with his final run to proceed. Joining the Scandinavians are crowd darling Alessandro Mazzara, who is noticeably better with each contest and who nearly lost control at the rollout from his final emphatic run, the Basque prodigy Egoitz Bijueska in whom we see a star being born in front of our eyes, and four fabulous Brazilians.
Pedro Barros opened their account in marvellous charged-up form, a real contrast to the measured flow of Augusto Akio. Luigi Cini is the low-key danger man of their crew and has that 360 flip stalefish from last year on lock now, but qualifying in first was Kalani Konig who came off the ropes having stuffed his first two runs.
His final run was something close to miraculous, beginning with an alley-oop backside kickflip indy clean over the love seat and including a huge alley-oop backside 360 indy over the volcano- which he still would have qualified without doing, but brought the house down with it regardless.
So: a new-look finals in both divisions as befits this new post-Paris Olympics era. Judging from the standard of these semifinals, the finals are going to produce several avenues of unexpected fireworks!
Credit: World Skate Press Release