WEDNESDAY, June 16, 2021
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SPORTS
INSIDE: Kaay eyes spot on Canadian Olympics team | A28 RBC OLYMPIANS PHOTO
A27
SPORTS: MARTY HASTINGS Phone: 250-374-7467 Email: sports@kamloopsthisweek.com Twitter: @MarTheReporter
BERGER OLYMPICS-BOUND MARTY HASTINGS
STAFF REPORTER
sports@kamloopsthisweek.com
Rome holds a special place in Matt Berger’s heart. The 27-year-old skateboarder from Kamloops secured qualification to the Olympic Summer Games in Tokyo last week at the Street World Championships in the Italian capital, using energy from the crowd to bounce back from a nasty fall and sneak into the finals. Berger was 17th in Olympic World Skateboarding Rankings heading into the world championships, the final qualifying event for the Games. He was under the impression he needed to be ranked inside the top 16 in the world after the Rome event in order to guarantee his place on Canada’s first-ever Olympic skateboarding team. That world-ranking positioning could be secured by being one of eight skaters to reach the finals at the world championships. One mistake in the warm-up session prior
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to the semifinals had potential to scuttle his Olympic dreams, a vicious fall off a 10-stair rail. “It honestly was one of the worst slams I’ve taken in skating in years,” said Berger, speaking to KTW on Tuesday from his home in Huntington Beach, Calif. “It was so bad that I was, like, in shock and laying on the bottom of the stairs checking my body. Am I good? Is my back good? Am I all right? Did I hit my head? I didn’t know what happened, in a sense, because it was so bad and it caught me off guard.” Worried spectators began to clap when Berger dragged himself up and stepped back onto his board, trying to focus on the semifinal round, which was to begin in 10 minutes. “The crowd started yelling and they were super supportive,” Berger said. “Every little trick I did, they were cheering me on and there was this kind of cool connection I’ve never really had in that sense, where the crowd’s energy kind of brought me back to life.”
Berger’s last trick of the semifinal round was the same one he bailed on during warm-up — a kickflip, backside, tail slide big spin out on the 10-stair rail. He stomped it. “I ended up putting everything together and that trick was the very last try I had and if I didn’t land it, I wouldn’t have made the finals,” Berger said. “The crowd was just so psyched. I just remember rolling away with this huge sense of relief, but also looking at the crowd and being like, ‘You guys helped me with this.’” The video of the trick and his reaction, which includes forming a heart with his hands and pointing to the crowd, is approaching 10,000 likes on Instagram. “That was probably one of the most life-changing tricks I’ve done in competition,” Berger said. “I didn’t even realize it at the time, but in hindsight, that last try and that trick was a really big game changer for my Olympics.” Berger, Andy Anderson of White Rock and Micky Papa
of Vancouver will represent Canada in skateboarding at the postponed 2020 Games, which are scheduled to run from July 23 to Aug. 8. Relationships with companies such as RBC and sponsors Etnies, Flip Skateboards, Monster Energy, Thunder Trucks and Bones Wheels, along with competition prize money and video appearance fees, help Berger pay bills. Qualifying for the history-making Canadian team promises to open up more doors for his career. “General Mills, and I couldn’t even believe it, but they decided to put me on my favourite cereal, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, so you can find that in the local grocery store,” said Berger, who will feature in the X Games Real Street video coming out on July 5. “It’s been very life changing in a lot of ways.” Berger underwent failed knee surgery in 2015. In 2017, he had an experimental, cadaverimplant knee surgery. See FRIENDS, A29
FALL Activity Guide 2021 City of Kamloops
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2020 City of Kamloops
Fall Activity Guide REGISTRATION: Tuesday, August 18, 2020 Online - 6:30 am | In Person/Phone - 10:00 am
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