MARGIE Didal fortified her Olympic bid late Wednesday night by advancing to the semifinals of the women’s street event of the Street Skateboarding World Championships at the Foro Italico Skatepark in Rome, Italy.
Apparently suffering jitters, Didal had a mediocre score of 8.28 points in her first run but stepped up in the second, more than doubling her initial output with 19.00 points, good for 17th overall among 49 riders who saw action in the women’s open qualifying round.
The best score of the two runs count for the athlete’s final placing in the qualifiers.
Yumeka Oda and Momiji Nishiya made it a 1-2 finish for Japan with scores of 40.22 and 34.11 points, respectively, while Norway’s Roos Zwetsloot was third (33.00).
The top 27 finishers advanced to the women’s semifinals set for today.
Joining Didal, who bagged two gold medals in the 30th Southeast Asian Games two years ago, and the other qualifiers are the top five skateboarders in the World Skate Olympic qualifying ratings who were pre-seeded into the round.
The best eight in the semis will see action in the finals tomorrow (Saturday), with the gold, silver and bronze medalists earning outright tickets to the Tokyo Olympic Games next month.
Currently ranked No. 13 in the WS Olympic qualifying ratings, Didal has a huge chance of formalizing her entry to Tokyo, where skateboarding is making its debut as a medal sport, after the world meet.
The top 16 in the rankings will book their slots to the Tokyo Summer Games, with each country limited to three entries each in the street and park events in both men’s and women’s divisions.
The perky Cebuana can move up the rankings since there are five Brazilians in the top 16 ranking list, with Pamela Rosa, Rayssa Leal and Leticia Bufoni at Nos. 1, 2 and 4, respectively.
Should any of the Brazilians in that list finish among the three in Rome, Didal will rise further in the rankings as well.
