BEIJING, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- As the 2022 Skateboarding Street and Park World Championships came to an end in Sharjah, the United Arab Emirates on Sunday, Chinese referee Tian Jun completed his work at yet another highest-level world skateboarding tournament after the Tokyo Olympic Games.

Tian, better known as Tim Hero, told Xinhua in an exclusive interview that street skateboarding has made rapid progress, while Chinese athletes still have a long way to go to achieve a breakthrough.

As the first qualifying event for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, referees had to work 10 hours a day for more than a week from the pre-game practice to the final, but Tian and his colleagues were very excited.

"I haven't seen many of the athletes for a while, and I found that they have made great progress. They were able to think and do some tricks that they had not been able to do before. They brought us wonderful games," Tian said.

Skateboarding is a sport that co bones excellence and difficulty, and at street events in particular, skaters have to take everything in the field, including but not limited to handrails, stairs and walls, into consideration and make use of it all.

According to the new Olympic Street Competition (2-5-3) format, each skater has two runs of 45 seconds each and five single trick attempts, with the best run score and two highest-scoring single trick scores adding up to be the final score.

"Everyone has only a limited number of opportunities, which is a huge challenge for the athletes," Tian explained. "For high-level competitions, you can never tell the result until the very last minute."

Progress made by female athletes has impressed Tian a lot. "If you have watched the women's final at the Tokyo Games, you'll understand that the World Championships this year is a competition of a higher level. There were tricks that only male athletes could do in the past."

A lot more grinds and flips could be seen at the worlds this time, as more young female skaters have started to add grinds and flips in their runs, which surprised veteran skaters.

15-year-old Brazilian Rayssa Leal is one of the best, who threw in a kickflip bluntslide trick in both semifinal and the final to get 87.22 points.

Tian believes the Tokyo Olympics played a key role in the rapid improvement of street skateboarding in a short period of time. "After the Tokyo Olympics, skateboarding has really been shown to the world, which encouraged skaters to express themselves even more."

"Hosts Japan took three gold medals at the Tokyo Games, so skaters from Europe, the United States and Brazil have been aiming for better performances since then," he added.

He also noted that, for the Chinese team, there is still a long way to go. Among all four events of men's and women's street and park, Lan Junyi ranked 25th in women's street, which is the highest finish among 19 Chinese athletes in Sharjah.

Zheng Wenhui, who finished sixth in women's street in Tokyo 2020, failed to qualify for the final.

"Zheng might be facing more pressure now, but she is capable of doing better," Tian said. "I believe that she will have better performances in the upcoming qualifying events."

"But it will surely take some time for the Chinese team as a whole to catch up with the top international standards," Tian added. Enditem

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