Following a hot and sunny qualifying day where the track record was beaten by Mitch Thomson, racing could happen in good conditions today. After 2 practice runs in the morning, we started a 64-rider bracket in Open Skateboarding, which split into 2 brackets of 32: One for the main bracket and one for the Dirty 30's (racers eliminated in the first round of 64). After a very short lunch break, we ran the quarter finals of all disciplines.
Luge
Malaysian Abdil Mahdzan followed his Newton's victory with a solid win in front of the Frenchman Olivier Gerling, who came in second. Third place went to German streetluger Ulrich Becker who, despite a crash with the Taiwanese Wei-Ze Chen, kept his position on the podium. After reviewing a few videos of the crash with the IDF officials, the decision was in favor of Ulrich, who appeared to be still in front of Wei-Ze during the left turn. Both riders agreed with the decision that ended with a great handshake between them.
Women
Emily Pross (US) confirmed her Women's division domination, crossing the finish line in first, with Teresa Gillcrist (US) following in second and Elissa Mah (NZ) in third. After the injury of Jennifer Schauerte during her second qualifying run, today the Filipina Abigail Viloria popped out her shoulder accidentally in the braking zone after racing her bracket. We wish both of them a fast and pleasant recovery for the next race in two days.
Junior Skateboarding
In the Junior division, the local future champion Justinne Calayag (PH) surprised Riley Young (AU), who had dominated the qualifications session, by overtaking him in the last section of the track. Keige Ando (PH) finished 3rd.
Master skateboarding
In the master category, Ben Hay (AU), 2017 Master World Champion, narrowly edged Peter Fritz (PH) out of a chance to take the win and crossed the finish line a few meters ahead of him, while Caloy Sambrano (PH) took 3rd place.
Open Skateboarding
The organizer and IDF officials decided to run a 64 bracket with the Dirty 30’s system (riders eliminated in the first round of 64 enter a new bracket of 32, in order to determine positions between 33 and 64). This allows riders to take more runs and, for those who are newer to competition, to get used to tight racing. Women did well in this bracket, as Elissa Mah from New Zealand and Léa Richard of France took first and second in the Dirty 30's final.
The Main bracket saw a few surprises, such as the quarterfinals elimination of 2018 Seaside winner Emily Pross and 9th-place qualifier Josh Evans.
The real surprise came from Filipino Tomas Romualdez (12th qualifying time), who made his way to the semifinals and ended 8th overall.
The final was composed of fastest qualifier and World ranking leader Mitch Thomson (AU); 2nd-place qualifier Harry Clarke (AU), who has more Philippines race experience than any other international rider; Andrew Atchinson (US) who qualified 5th; and the young American prodigy, Chase Hiller (3rd qualifier).
Harry had a strong run and managed to overtake Mitch in the final corners of the track. Thompson, confident from his recent Newton's win and 5th place at Tame the Taipan, could not hold Harry back from claiming his first IDF victory.
As a parting note, we wanted to mention a great act of sportsmanship between Andrew Atchinson and Chase Hiller. Both crashed before the last corner, and although Chase crossed the finish before Andrew, they had a conversation in the finish zone and quickly agreed that Andrew should be placed 3rd and Chase 4th. They referred this to the IDF officials, who agreed with their decision. Thank you for your honest and fair competition.
See you in two days for the last race of the Asia Pacific Championship, Moon Rock 2019 WQS where we'll see the final awards ceremony of both competitions.
Credits for pictures in the article: Jennifer Schauerte
