The kid from the Prado bowl is the last French skater competing in these World Championships. In the United Arab Emirates, Vincent Matheron, a park specialist (in a bowl, a kind of empty swimming pool with rounded walls) finished 16th in the quarter-finals on Friday, thanks to a run scored 69.37 points. In Sharjah, near Dubai, the 24-year-old Marseillais took the last qualifying spot for the semi-finals, which will take place this Saturday.
Best European of the Tokyo Olympics (7th), Matheron will have to raise the level to qualify for the final on Sunday, knowing that the current top 5 of these World Championships is played on runs scored beyond 85 points.
Damestoy injured before the quarters
Competition ended on the other hand for Edouard Damestoy. A few minutes before the start of the quarters, the Bordelais fell heavily on his back, following a collision with another skater during training. “I tried to skate the quarters but the pain was too intense”explained the winner of the X Games last summer, in another discipline, who finished 30th and last in these quarter-finals, dominated by the reigning Olympic champion, the Australian Keegan Palmer (88.33 pts).
As in street last week, there will be no tricolor representative among the women in the semi-finals. The young Louise-Aïna Taboulet, 13, for her first official World Skate competition with the French team, signed a great performance in view of qualifying for the 2024 Paris Olympics, finishing 19th (with a run of 64.60 points). Émilie Alexandre took 31st place (28 pts).