Two sports made their debut on the center stage of The World Games. Lacrosse und Floorball showcased the qualities of their sports for the first time in history on the official program. And they did it a stunning way: the first floorball match ever opened the door to a reencounter. Petri Kettunen was the Coach of Finland and celebrated the win of last year’s World Championship. He is now in charge of the Czech Team and had to play Finland. The champions won 4-2.
In Lacrosse, it was a tough introduction for the Polish team, who today played their first ever international match. They could not have been given a more difficult opponent. Last week, USA easily defeated Canada to claim their seventh Lacrosse World Cup title. The completely inexperienced ladies from Poland gave it their best shot, but fell to a predictable 0-20. However, the crowd gave them a standing ovation.
Malaysia's eight-time world champion Nicol David failed to win a record fourth gold medal in the women's event. At the Hasta La Vista Squash Center, she lost her semi-final against Joey Hang from Hong Kong in a thrilling five set match. It was a cloudy day not only for Nicol David but literally for the fans of Water Skiing: rain in the morning and no sun in the afternoon. But the performance of the athletes set the competition into the brightest light: Nicola Butler from the USA, born in South Africa and now living in Florida, won the Women’s Wakeboard Freestyle Final. Silver went to the USA (Erika Lang) as well. Moving on to the men in the Wakeboarding, Japan’s Shota Tezuka was crowned the new World Games Champion.
In the Waterski Jump finals, Natallia Berdnavika (Belarus) jumped to gold (48.8m) beating Marie Vympranietsova from Greece by just 60 centimeters. Germany’s Bojan Schipner (64.6m) secured the 12th gold medal for his country, which is now chasing Italy (14 gold) in the medal table. Orienteering concluded its competitions with the relay and the second gold medal for Denmark. Gold medalist Maja Alm made the difference: The first three runners from Denmark were able to stay with the pack before Maja Alm made a gap on the rest of the field in a fast and tight sprint relay race around the soggy Wroclaw Zoo. Their lead was 26 seconds over Switzerland.
There were two new sports with finals on the program today as well: Kickboxing and Indoor Rowing. However, both of them are invitational sports, meaning their medals do not count for the tally. Nevertheless they still count for the athletes who won them. In Kickboxing, there were twelve finals on the schedule. Slobodan Mijajlovic (Mens’s K1 67kg) from Serbia won one of the first at the Orbita Hall. Anna Wierzbowska won another silver medal for Poland in the Indoor Rowing in Jelcz – Laskowice, finishing behind Olena Buryak of Ukraine in the Women's Openweight 500m Final.