If you don’t know what to talk about, talk about the weather. And we have to say a lot about the weather today. A huge thunderstorm blew away what in the very sunny morning was known as a timetable. Competitions at the Boules venue had to be postponed. Some others such a Fistball match and preliminaries in Archery had to face some delay.
But there are a lot more stories to tell that do not concern rain, thunder or sunshine. Or it does in a metaphorical way: the sun was shining for Poland today. The host country achieved its first gold medal at the Wroclaw Airfield. Wojciech Bogda won the Paramotor competition. But he won more than just the first World Games title for his country. He also contributed to Poland’s medal count alongside Marcin Bernat, who won bronze in the same comptition. This means Poland has now won eight medals – more than they have done in any previous TWG.
When it comes to medal counting, the next most obvious place to go is to the story of Sandrine Tas of Belgium. The 21-year-old speed skater completed her medal set this morning. She won bronze on Friday, silver on Saturday and today it was gold. Tas came in first in the Track Women's Sprint 1,000m Final in the morning. But Sandrine Tas wasn’t finished and in the evening she achieved silver in Track Women's Point Elimination 15,000m. She could do better yet as she still has four more races to complete.
So Tas could challenge Russian Arina Averina’s medal count. The gymnast leads in the ranking of the multi medalists, winning three golds and one bronze in Rhythmic Gymnastics. Although there are still a lot of competitions and medals yet to be won, she is definitely a candidate for the best athlete of The World Games 2017.
Back to the weather in metaphorical way: it was a striking day for the 25-year-old Batyr Altyev. Yesterday, the athlete from Russia was crowned a World Games champion in the Sumo Lightweight class. Today he took his chance fighting in the Openweight class where a man for 84kg had to compete against competitors weighing almost double. In spite of this he made it to the final. What a success. Finally he lost against his compatriot the 140kg Heavyweight champion Vasilii Margiev. But nevertheless it was an outstanding success for the lightweight beneath all these heavy weights.
Finally, Poland was not the only country to win their first gold medal today. The USA, host of upcoming The World Games in 2021, blew away the cobwebs after losing the American Football Semi-Final yesterday. No less than two gold medals were achieved by the US-Team today: Nicolas Batsch claimed gold in Parachuting - Canopy Piloting, and in the Ultimate Frisbee Final the USA beat Colombia 13-7. This marked the fourth consecutive World Games title in the row for the team.
Check all the results here…