After several years of hiatus, the world famous ‘’Paris Slalom World Cup’’ race at the legendary Trocadero square with view at the Eiffel Tower was back on race calendar. It was the season opening race for international slalom racing in Europe. Great weather (with small rain delays) and quite international field promised action-packed racing in hybrid, giant and tight slalom and it sure delivered.
In Open category defending European champion Christopher Dupont from France managed to win every discipline and overall, respectively, earning the title ‘’Roi du Trocadero’’ (King of Trocadero). Petr Matouš from Czech Republic scored two seconds and a third in tight slalom taking the second overall spot. Most probably the biggest surprise of the event came from Sweden - Olle Bauer was fast from the very beginning and grabbed the final podium spot in overall. Second place in tight slalom and fourth place in overall classification went to Louis Selby. Briton had a great pace all weekend long and will be force to recon in the upcoming European events.
Battles were fierce on both days and overall Open classification from 5th till 10th was as follows: Christoph Baumann (Germany), Vincent Tanguy (France), Gustavs Gailitis (Latvia), Zdenek Mach, Stepan Vojta (both Czech Republic) and Max Thiele (Germany).
In lady’s category one of the fastest female slalom skateboarders in the world Karolina Vojtova from Czech Republic was unstoppable with three wins over her mother Hana Vojtova and Therese Redman from Sweden.
In teens and juniors, the Czech young talent pool took the top honours: in teen category Emily Martinu won giant and tight, but Anna Safrankova was fastest in hybrid. In junior category Dan Syrovy jr had a clean sweep with three first place finishes beating Karolina Machova and Tomas Mach, all from Czech Republic.
The event was a great success and slalom skateboarding community is hoping to have more races in this legendary and mythical place at the very centre of Paris. The international racing season continues on 17-19th June in Helsingborg, Sweden with the European Championships of slalom skateboarding.
