Last year, in the first stage in January in Priekuli, there was snow, and the artificial snow was only on the track, but there was mud around and it even rained. This year the skiers competed in winter conditions, where the lack and quality of snow could not be complained about. In the first half of the day, the FIS competition took place, in which adults, juniors (2004/2005) and representatives of the older youth group (2006/2007) competed.
In the 24-competitor, 10km (4×2.5km) men’s competition, three starters were Lithuanian, one from Ecuador and the other 20 were representatives of Latvia. Lauris Kaparkalējs, the gold medal winner at the European Youth Olympic Festival, completed the first lap with a lead of 11 seconds, but after the second lap, i.e. the halfway point of the race, Raimo Vigants, the 20th place winner in the sprint at the Olympic Games, had already eliminated the deficit, both Madonians showed the same time and creating great intrigue in the fate of the winner. At the end of the distance, the representative of “Bebra” had more strength, so the distribution of the first two places was identical to that of 2023 – Vigants first, and Kaparkalējs, who had started in the adult group for the first year, second.
Among the top three was another Madonie, Sylvesters Švauksts, who also won gold in the junior category. A recognized performance was that of the representative of the youth group, Jēkabs Skolnieks from Riga, who was the best of the “Arkadija” skiers and placed 4th, obtaining the gold medal in the V18 group. As always Audris Odo Vītoliņš from Ogre, who showed good results in winter orienteering at the international championships, was very good in the classics, winning silver in the juniors. The top six were completed by Sandijs Suhanov from Sigulda, who has gone from strength to strength since last year’s operation and won bronze in the adult group.
The silver and bronze medal winners of the V18 youth group, whose first season at FIS, were immediately behind the six in the overall standings: Bruno Bilans, last year’s leader in the V16 group of the Sigulda Sports School, and Dāvis Kalniņš, who won the classic in the V16 group a year ago, representing “Arkadia”.
In the women’s 5km (2×2.5km) out of 13 participants, 11 were Latvian skiers, while two represented Lithuania, where the national championship took place last weekend. This time no one from Estonia participated, because the northern neighbors moved the championship scheduled for the first weekend of January to this one, because a week ago the second stage of the Scandinavian Cup took place in Estonia. Therefore, it was known that the best places would be occupied by Latvian women.
Her favorite status was confirmed by Kitty Auziņa, who lost less than 5 minutes to the 10 km winner in the World Cup stages this year, which no one else, except Patricija Eidukas, managed to do. Madonieta achieved a convincing victory, beating her closest competitor Samantha Krampi of “Arkadija” by almost a minute – 54 seconds. After two representatives of the adult group, the Lithuanian junior Egle Savickaite finished in the top three (+1:19).
The best junior skier among Latvian skiers was Adriāna Šuminska from Kráslav, who took 4th place and was only a few seconds away from the top three. The best representative of the S18 group, Linda Kaparkalėja from Madona, remained ten seconds behind Šuminska, who had just qualified for the Youth Olympic Games (JOS) as the leader. The other representative from Latvia who qualified for the JOS and who dominated the S16 group last year, Martīne Djatkoviča, a Kraslav, who represents Daugavpils and who this year still corresponds to the S16 group based on her age, he completed the top six and won silver in the S18 group.
2024-01-20 15:01:15
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