Sch3lp’s Blog

Last weekend I went to the Inline Games in Hannover, Germany.
The Inline Games are like a sort of skate-festival throughout an entire weekend. There were nightskates, a marathon, an aggressive competition and a WSSA freestyle slalom competition. I was mainly going there to see some friends again, that I haven’t seen since last time I went to a battle competition (in Mönchengladbach). But I was also going to compete in the freestyle slalom competition (and for fun the speed slalom competition).

The weekend started on friday at 14h, when I left by car to Hannover. It took me rougly 5 hours to get there. Apparently they’re working at the roads all over Germany, but all in all it went pretty well, I only drove one hour more than was estimated. When I arrived friday evening I was welcomed by smiling faces, filled with joy from either being reunited with friends they haven’t seen in a while, or because they had a great weekend full of skating ahead of them. I was smiling because of both.

The competition started on saturday morning with speed slalom qualifications. I kinda slept in, and I was under the impression that I had some time left to get some coffee and have some breakfast. Diederik called me when I’d just ordered a coffee, telling me I still had to subscribe for the competition. So I hurried to the desk, subscribed, and competed. I didn’t think I was going to pass the qualifications. Because I’m really shit at speed slalom, I usually just go as fast as I can, and try to move my leg sideways as fast as I can, without paying any attention to the cones. Apparently I got “lucky” and got the 16th qualification position. This means in the knock-outs, I would turn out against the guy with the best time in the qualifications: Luca Ulivieri.
Then in the afternoon there was the freestyle slalom competition. When they put up the group-list, I noticed I was in the group with Philip Downer (UK), Francesco Maselli (Italy), and Taehong Kim (South-Korea). Francesco was my IFSA Judge course instructor, and I’ve heard that Phil was pretty good as well. I had met Taehong in Mönchengladbach, and he’s really good as well. I was gonna have it hard to advance to the next round, only the first 2 of the group will pass.
Battle system is different from IFSA format, in that all of the 4 skaters in your battlegroup get 3 tries of 30 seconds to show their best and most styleful tricks. And you skate on music provided by a DJ, not to your own music. So you can’t really prepare for this.
Anyway, when it was my turn I tried my best and it paid off, because I got 2nd place of my group ! I was very satisfied with this result, because last time I got wiped out in the first round already (was in the group with the skaters that took 1st and 3rd place back then). The 2nd group I was in, was with Maxim Shvyrev (Russia), Christian Fessel (Germany, guy got first place on the last competition in Mönchengladbach), and Mischa Gurevich (Russia). I got 4th in that one, for obvious reasons (falling on my ass didn’t help either).
The competition was ultimately won by Rudy Op’t Veld. Sort of surprisingly, because usually Igor Cheremetieff takes the gold. But not this time. I can imagine Rudy being really happy, because after all the competition took place in his native country, and to be honest he really deserved it as well. The final battle was really amazing… they all had jawbreaking and mindboggling tricks. It must’ve been real hard for the judges to make a final decision as well.

The organisation decided to have the women’s freestyle slalom competition that saturday too, because the weatherforecasts for the next day weren’t all too bright…Stormy and rainy weather was predicted. Of which I think we got some already in the night. Polina Semenova (Russia) won the females, also against all usual expectations. Normally Chloe usually wins, but Polina did some tricks where she showed enormous flexibility (she must have elastic legs or something), and I think those tricks made the final decision. Also worth mentioning is that Lidia Wardzinska (Poland) got her first ranking in top 4 (she was 4th), and she’s building quite a fanbase I must say

Next day was filled with speed slalom knock-outs (got beaten by Luca, duuh), in which Luca eventually won (from Igor). Female Speed slalom qualifications and knock-outs followed immediately afterwards with Fanny Violeau taking first place, and Chloe Seyres taking second. When this was done, there was only one competition left: the Team Battles.

In TeamBattle you get 3 skaters in one team, and you battle it out versus another team of 3. I had put myself up for “random team” (didn’t have a team, but decided to compete anyway if there were maybe 2 other skaters without a team). At one point Igor Cheremetieff came up to me and said “hey, we’re on the same team, along with Julien Boucry”. I was actually in a team with really awesome skaters from France.
Our first opponents were Team Skatemeile, we won from them with our coordinated tricks like me toe-blocking and igor doing a rocket/cafetière between my legs. A real crowd-pleaser I must add…But we followed that up with going straight at each other, I go into rocket and Igor jumped over me. The crowd went nuts I really hope someone filmed that run We passed that round, and our next opponents were Team 4WheelFreestyle (also from Germany, with Rudy, Thomas Vilcans and Christian Leven). They’re all real good skaters as well, and we just kind of fooled around. 4WheelFreestyle won that round so team Francofun was discontinued sadly enough.

The final team battle was Team Russia (Polina Semenova, Mischa Gurevich and Maxim Shvyrev) versus Team Italia (Tiziano Ferrari, Luca Ulivieri and Francesco Maselli). I’ve uploaded this to Vimeo, and posted it right under this paragraph, you just HAVE to see it. The atmosphere was so cool… You’ve really missed out on something special if you weren’t there, I’m sorry but that’s how it is. The winner of this final was Team Italy whom got cheered and applauded the most by the spectators.

Inline Games Hannover 2008 - TeamBattle Final - Team Russia vs. Team Italia from Tim Schraepen on Vimeo.

To conclude the weekend, a bunch of skaters who were leaving on monday and myself went to the city (by foot), and finally ended up at some festival in Hannover near a lake. It was a nice location, but there wasn’t much crowd left anymore (probably because everybody had to work the next day). We took a cab back to the hotel, had some breakfast the next morning, and all went home. Eager to meet each other again at the next competition (Battle Warsaw or BattleUK3).

Once again I’ve met some really really cool people, had a great time. I thought Mönchengladbach couldn’t be topped, but I think Hannover was better. Let’s hope Battle Warsaw is even better ! To everybody who was there and is reading this: Thanks for the good times guys and girls, it really made the weekend last in my memory.

Here are the pictures I took
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