Today, without exaggeration, is a historic day for Ust-Kamenogorsk sport - for the first time we managed to win medals of the World Freestyle Championships both among women and men.
For fans of history we shall tell also that the competitions - the World freestyle Championship - is spent in Kazakhstan also for the first time, so this day is historical also for all Kazakhstan sports.
There was no doubt that we would win a medal. Referees often favour the athletes of the country where the world championship is being held. For example, two years ago in the USA, two American women were on the podium in the women's parallel mogul. If you add to the factor of home walls the skill of Yulia Galysheva and knowledge of every inch of the track, the fact that our main star will have a medal is a fait accompli. But naturally, we wanted her to defend her 2019 World Champion title in the United States.
Doing so was quite a challenge. The Frenchwoman Perrin Laffont wanted revenge for the defeat two years ago, the Frenchwoman Sochi 2014 Olympic vice-champion Chlo Dafour-Lapoin and her sister, Sochi 2014 champion and PyeongChang 2018 silver medalist Justine were still in the ranks. And that's not counting the powerful Anthony Jacar of Australia, Jaylin Kauf of the United States.
The qualification results showed that we should also be wary of the Russians Victoria Lazarenko and Anastasia Smirnova, who lost less than two points to Galysheva. However, it was qualification that showed Galysheva, despite the small number of starts this season, is in terrific shape. She was second in the preliminary stage with 78.23 points. Only Laffont was better (79,41). It should be noted that our youngest contestant Anastasia Gorodko reached the finals, but even in the first finals she managed to take a very high 13th place for a 15-year-old girl. Below, by the way, was Chlo Dafur-Lapuan. Galysheva rocketed to an interim first place, even beating the French favorite!
The final turned into a powerful battle between Laffont and Galysheva. Alas, this time the athlete from Ust-Kamenogorsk could not come out the winner. However, taking into account the number of injuries she went through, this silver medal is akin to a "gold". Julia now has an Olympic bronze medal, as well as a whole collection of different World Championships: Kreisberg bronze medal from 2015, two silver medals from Sierra Nevada 2017 and Almaty 2021, and a gold award from Deer Valley 2019. It's time to open our own museum.
In the men's competition our hopes were associated with two athletes from Ust-Kamenogorsk: Dmitry Reicherd and Pavel Kolmakov. The main contender for the award was the super veteran Reicherd. At 32, he is currently the "oldest" mogul skier in the World Cup. But the big speed events have so far eluded him. He finished fifth at the Olympic Games in Sochi and two World Championships. It was worth giving him a medal at least for his longevity. He made a step to the medal in qualify and was the best of our athletes - 6th place. Pavel Kolmakov reached the finals from 12th position only.
But already in the first final attempt Pavel Kolmakov made a real sensation, taking second place! He had never been so high in the competitions of the strongest in the world in his life! Only the Canadian iron favorite, Michael Kingsbury, was higher. Reicherd, by the way, was also quite good with the fourth intermediate result, and we had hope that Kazakhstan would be able to repeat the trick of the U.S. women's team in 2019.
But alas, no. Dmitry Reicherd finished fifth at the World Championships for the third time in his career. And that must be a great tragedy for our mogul grand master. A man who for more than a dozen years was the benchmark for all Kazakhstani mogul skiers. But the World Championships in Almaty-2021 was a real breakthrough in the career of Pavel Kolmakov. For the first time in his career he managed to win a medal of the world's largest start and became a bronze medalist of this planetary championship. By the way, none of our men had ever won a medal at the World Mogul Championships. So today Pavel became a super star!
Source: yk.kz
