Russian team wins the Phygital Games 8 in Skateboarding
The Phygital Games 8 in Skateboarding under the Fourth All-Russian Urban Games MATCH! held in Tatarstan have come to an end! Russian team New Kids Turbo – winner of the competition.
For two days, the best riders from Argentina, Colombia, Spain, Bulgaria, Russia and Belarus competed in a new discipline – Phygital Skateboarding. On the first day, they demonstrated their skills first on the sports field, then in a skateboarding simulator. In the end, three teams from Russia and one from Argentina – New Kids Turbo (Russia), Latino Gang (Argentina), Slugs (Russia), and "Troe iz lartsa" (Russia) – successfully qualified.
While, on the first day, the riders had to combine the physical and digital parts, when it came to the finals, first one team member did tricks in a real park, then the other tried to repeat them in digital format. According to the judges, the guys from New Kids Turbo turned out to be the best. The second place was taken by the team “Troe iz lartsa”, and the third by the Argentines from Latino Gang.
“There is no analogue of phygital skateboarding in the world – no one has come up with something like that yet. That's right, you need to create something of your own and patent it. Phygital is a wonderful development, people are no longer that much into traditional sports, and this discipline is a worthy replacement for that,” highlighted Egor Kaldikov, Phygital Games 8 winning team member, one of the leaders of the Russian national skateboarding team, and winner of multiple awards at competitions in Russia and abroad.
Phygital Games 8 in Skateboarding were held at the Uram extreme park, the largest in Europe, located in the very center of Kazan. The competition had a prize pool of 2 million rubles. Three-time Olympic champion in artistic swimming Mariya Kiselyova and two-time Olympic champion in snowboarding Vic Wild were among the honored guests of the Phygital Games 8. On the final day of the competition, bloggers and presenters of the E TV channel Anna Moleva and Ivan Zhestkov delivered a lecture on the basics of blogging and the prospects of the phygital discipline in streaming on the street sports festival stage.
Phygital Games 9 in MOBA will begin next week at the Kazan Expo. From July 20 to 23, Tatarstan will host the most vibrant players from different countries in the MLBB mobile game, and from July 24 to 27 in the Dota 2 computer game.
Phygital Games are a series of competitions in phygital disciplines ahead of the 2024 Games of the Future. The first Phygital Games were held in Kazan on September 21-23, 2022 featuring four disciplines — phygital football (football simulator + futsal), phygital basketball (NBA + streetball), Beat Saber and drone racing. Phygital Games in racing (Assetto Corsa + karting), martial arts (Mortal Kombat 11 + MMA) and hockey (NHL 22 + 3*3 hockey) took place in November and December 2022. In February 2023, Games in the esports disciplines Speedrun, Dota 2, MLBB, CS:GO and Warface were held in Kazan combined with laser tag. In March there was the phygital ice racing tournament (Assetto Corsa + winter karting), and in May — in phygital football and tactical combat Standoff 2 + laser tag.
Games of the Future are an international tournament of a new format. The games comprise competitions in 16 hybrid disciplines. Each of the disciplines combines the concept of “phygital” (physical + digital), uniting traditional sports and esports or VR/AR technology and testing both the physical fitness of athletes and their digital dexterity. The tournament will be held in Kazan from February 23 to March 2, 2024.