Puerto Rican skateboarder Esmeralda Butler won the second series of the women’s street event and qualified for the final of the Youth Olympic Games Dakar 2026 with the second-best overall score of the preliminary round, held at the Complexe Tour de l’Oeuf. Butler, 13, scored 62.45 points on her best run, the highest mark in that component among the 12 competitors across both series.
She added 72.14 points on her best trick for a total of 134.59. The flag bearer was supported by her coach, Shaggy Vargas, in the event of Puerto Rico’s Skateboarding Federation. Butler, a gold medalist at the 2026 Central American and Caribbean Games in Santo Domingo, competes again Thursday at 4:00 PM. Dakar time (noon in Puerto Rico).
The six finalists start from zero, carrying no preliminary scores. Also Thursday, Puerto Rico’s Eduardo Carretero Pantoja finished 27th of 32 triathletes from 32 countries in the men’s individual triathlon, timed at 1:02:46. The 17-year-old, wearing bib 7, reached Senegal with an eighth place at the Junior Cup of the Americas in Lima, his best result of the season.
The race covered 750 meters of swimming, 20 kilometers of cycling and 5 kilometers of running. Portugal’s Artur Gaspar won gold in 53:13, with Luxembourg’s Emile Vanolst taking silver 10 seconds back and Japan’s Daiki Nishizaki bronze, 14 seconds behind.