Japan’s Nakayama leads last-chance women's quartet to Rio street skateboarding finals
Japanese street specialist Nakayama Funa finished first to join USA’s Poe Pinson, Gabriela Mazetto and Zeng Wenhui as the last chance women’s qualifiers for Sunday’s SLS Super Crown Championship Final.
Skateboarding
Japan’s Nakayama Funa, skateboarding bronze winner from the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, topped the Last Chance Qualifier (LCQ) field from Rio’s Olympic Park on Saturday to move through to the women’s SLS Super Crown Championship Final on 6 November.
Widely considered a master of the front crook, Nakayama's dominant combined score of 14.6 from two runs and a best-trick component was enough to see her rise head-and-shoulders above the day's competition.
Florida-born Poe Pinson of the USA followed up behind her Japanese opponent with a 14.0 score. They’ll both be joined in Sunday’s final round by fellow last-chancers Gabriela Mazetta of Brazil (the only qualifier out of heat one) and Zeng Wenhui of the People’s Republic of China -- who finished third and fourth respectively.
“I just really liked this course even though it’s not the type of course I usually like,” said second-place Pinson, who led going into the best-trick portion of heat two and swapped out a high-points gap-to-smith grind for a safer board slide to seal her place in the final. “My run had lots of tricks and it just came from me trying to make this course my own.”
Saturday’s winning quartet now heads to the competition's final round.
They'll join up with Tokyo 2020 Olympic silver medallist Rayssa Leal, who tops the rankings after going undefeated in all three previous SLS events in the U.S. (Jacksonville, Seattle and Las Vegas), and 2021 defending champion Pamela Rosa.
Japan's Oda Yumeka and Olympic champion Nishiya Momiji will also take part when podium places are on the line.
The Rio competition concludes tomorrow (Sunday 6 November) with the final round to decide the men's and women's 2022 Street League Skateboarding (SLS) Super Crown champions.