Two-time Olympic medalist and now two-time world champion. This is the resume of Maranhão native Rayssa Leal, who won the world championship twice this Saturday (14), during the world championship skateboard street, in Rome, Italy.
To win the title, Rayssa needed a great maneuver, which guaranteed the comeback at the end of the competition. skateboarder The 16-year-old competed against seven other athletes in the final, all of them Japanese. The Brazilian was also world champion in 2022.
Now, in the first competition after the Paris Olympic Games, Rayssa showed great form. In skateboard streetthe competition begins with each athlete having the right to two laps within a course, where the best score between these two attempts counts. The Brazilian had the two best scores among all the competitors, first registering an 86.44 and then an 88.43 (a score that she carried over to the continuation of the final).
The second part of the competition consists of single maneuvers. Each athlete is allowed five attempts and the two best scores are added together. In this phase, Rayssa faced a tough opponent: Momiji Nishiya – gold medalist at the Tokyo Games – put together a series of good maneuvers, achieving the highest single score among all the finalists, a 94.88. With that, she jumped into the lead, since Rayssa was unable to complete the maneuvers in the first two attempts.
Scoring
In the next two, however, the Brazilian put in good performances and scored high, first with an 88.14 and then a 93.99, which saw her surpass Nishiya on her penultimate attempt. With only one attempt remaining for each athlete, only Nishiya still had a chance of taking the title from Rayssa. However, she failed on her last maneuver and the Brazilian confirmed the victory.
Rayssa’s achievement is noteworthy because she competed against seven athletes from the country considered the greatest power today. To give you an idea, the two editions of the skateboard street at the Olympic Games ended with a Japanese victory. In both Tokyo and Paris, Rayssa (silver in 2021 and bronze in 2024) was the intruder on podiums formed only with athletes from Japan. In fact, the four Japanese women who were on these podiums (Momiji Nishiya, Funa Nakayama, Coco Yoshizawa and Liz Akama) were also present in this Saturday’s final.
Shortly after the women’s final, the men’s final took place. Brazil was represented by Kelvin Hoefler, who, after limping out of his second round, ended up withdrawing from the competition, finishing in eighth place.
