Sch3lp's Blog

Inline Games Hannover 2008

Sch3lp — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 23:02:48 +0000

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

IFSA Milano 2008

Sch3lp — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 10:54:52 +0000

I just got back from last weekends IFSA competition in Gessate, Italy.
This was my first time as an IFSA judge, and it seems I underestimated the pressure the judges experience.
I made a few mistakes during speed slalom. I didn’t call a false start when it obviously was one. I tried to whistle, but my brain was still processing or something, so a really weak whistle came out and noone heard it. Juan-Carlos (another IFSA judge) told me he had the same experience. But afterwards I didn’t doubt anymore. I guess it had something to do with lack of confidence.
The judge team consisted of Francesco Maselli from Italy, Kristell Arzur from France, Juan-Carlos Fidalgo from Spain, and myself.
The organisation by Polisportivo Gessate was great, and Ciro and Rossella made us feel welcome from the start. They deserve a big thank you, so THANK YOU Ciro and Rossella!!
During the weekend there also was a rock-concert (Gess on Rock) going on, very near to the competition area. Headliner of the weekend was a famous (in Italy at least) punk/ska band called Punkreas. You can get a taste of the atmosphere in the evening and during the concert in the pictures.

I had a great weekend, but didn’t get to do a lot of skating. It really was, like Francesco told us at the judge course last year, “more work than fun”. Next time, I’ll be prepared

A bit of the atmosphere at the contest

IFSA Milano 2008 - Freestyle Men Training from Tim Schraepen on Vimeo.

Also, this is the song that’ll remind me of this weekend: Junior Kelly - If love so nice (props to the italian DJ at the event!)

Conecrazy Coast-Slalom Weekend

Sch3lp — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 18:35:56 +0000

Last weekend we went to Knokke-Heist for a weekend filled with Freestyle Slalom.
We were staying over at Camping Zilvermeer, the camping-site where Jurgen & Nancy spend a lot of time.
From the camping-site to the slalom-spot was about 6km’s alongside the shore.
We had lots of fun, good times, freestyle slalom hours, SUN (damn the sunburn!), AND an eventful and cosy barbecue evening.

I think the pictures speak for themselves

This was an unforgettable weekend and I really hope we can do it all over again some time. For now I’m looking forward to the next weekend: judging an IFSA competition in Milano, Italy.
And I’m very much looking forward to the weekend after the next: Naomi Grigg’s visiting Belgium again. She’s coming over to Hasselt this time

Stuff… I haz lots of it

Sch3lp — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 18:18:38 +0000

Alright, this is going to be like a HUGE update.
It’s going to be SO huge, it’s going to make my other “HUGE” update seem like the understatement of the year.
I’ve been skating a LOT recently. Whatever this post is going to contain in the end, I bet like, 9/10 things are skate-related.

Anyway here we go:
[b]Snowboarding[/b]
I went snowboarding in Italy from the 28th of march ’til the 6th of April. After last year’s super-trip, it was going to be really hard to make it even better, let alone just have the same fun we had back then. It was a lot less fun, but still lots of fun nonetheless. When we arrived I felt like coming home after a long absence, after all it had been 3 or 4 years since we last went to Folgarida. The snow was good (but could’ve been better), weather was good (but could’ve been better). I did learn a couple of new tricks on our last day on the slopes (like 360, and a little bit of tail-riding), but others (Michael) were better at it, and he just keeps on rubbing it in.
Pictures

Videos (playlist on YouTube)

[b]Next item: ConeCrazy[/b]
ConeCrazy is doing great.
We’ve had our couple of random sessions:
For example Skating in Kapermolen Park in Hasselt

Or Skating at “Trone” in Brussels

Or Skating at “Fitopia” in Antwerp (hosted by lovely Vicky)

We’ve also done a couple of demonstrations:
Skate-day in Bommershoven

At the 6hrs Marathon of Diepenbeek

And recently at the Tofsportdag in Leuven

We also finalized our course of 10 lessons (each lasting 2 hours) for the Lommel-Inline skate-club (and we’re likely to start another course in September):

We went to a workshop by Naomi Grigg in Ghent, organized by Rollerman:

Lots of people were cheering when I competed in the IFSA World Championship 2008 Brussels, as the only belgian that was competing in Freestyle Slalom (I ended up being 18th of 23 slalom-skaters, which is good considering their technical level) :

RJD2

Sch3lp — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 21:22:28 +0000

If you’re going to spend the next 3 minutes just surfing the web, you’ll be better of by listening to this:

RJD2 _is_ God.

Dubai ain’t fucking around

Sch3lp — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 11:06:23 +0000

Goddamn, Dubai really is zero-tolerance when it comes to law enforcement.
Even one of the top Drum’n'Bass DJ’s doesn’t slip through the net.
Read this: Grooverider sentenced to four years

Huge update

Sch3lp — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 19:22:20 +0000

It’s been a while so I’ve got lots of news to tell and even more pictures to share.

We went to the 4WheelFreestyle weekend in Mönchengladbach, Germany, where a lot of “famous” skaters went to, and where one of the events of the World Slalom Series took place.
I had a great time meeting all of them and of course meeting our friends from the Netherlands again. Also met a few other _really_ cool people from Poland. Shout-out to Lidia and Rafal !
Next to “meeting new people”, there was also skating to be done of course. I had the “luck” to be in the same battle-group as Xuan Le (who ranked third) and Christian Leffel (who eventually won the competition). Only the 2 first of each battle-group qualify for the next round, so yeah, obviously I got bumped quite fast .
I had a great time nonetheless, and I’ve added lots of new tricks to my skillset as well.

Big thank you to Rudy Op ‘t Veld for teaching me lots of stalls, and to Naomi and Tae-hong (coach of the Korean NoBreak team) for some stylish moves.
Now that I’m in my “thank you’s”, might as well go on and give thanks to 4WheelFreestyle for the great organisation and location. Real good work guys.

Thanks to Diederik Schouten for bringing along my brand new blue Seba 2008’s with you, so I could use them to jump over 1m15 in the FreeJump competition (first time I competed in FreeJump and got 2nd place! woo! yay!).

And thanks DJ (sorry, forgot your name already ) for showing me this track-title: Moloko - Sing it back (Matthew Herbert’s Tasteful Dub). Pure bliss!

Biggest thanks go out to all belgians who joined in on the fun (you know who you are!). It wouldn’t have been the same without you guys.

Pictures!

More pictures of the event are nicely bundled on this page on 4WheelFreestyle.de.

Last sunday, Huub from BelgianInlineCenter organized the 2nd Meet’n'Greet for all belgian slalom-enthousiasts. And what a great job he did. Very nice hall, nice competition area and he even scored some cool prizes for the mini-tournament (including chocolate easter-eggs ). Thx to all the people that showed up for being part of it and actually _making_ this 2nd Meet’n'Greet into a success that topped last years. Hopefully this trend will continue on to next year, for an even bigger and better event.
Again…Pictures!

More pictures of the event are to be found in this thread on BIC.

Shout out to our french-speaking friends from HelixRoller who came over from Namur all the way to Ghent! It was once again “très amusant” to meet you guys!

Snowboarding in Samoëns

Sch3lp — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 20:23:33 +0000

Last week I went snowboarding in Samoëns, France (near Flaines). I went along with a friend of mine, who sadly got into an accident on the 2nd day.
Result: some of his more important muscles of his left leg were torn and he had his knee in a brace the rest of the vacation. :/

We had a good time none the less. Which is hopefully noticeable in the pictures:

Next weekend I’ll be in Mönchengladbach, Germany, for a Freestyle Slalom competition organized by 4Wheel Freestyle.
Cu there?

Listening to: Goldfrapp - A&E

Blade, Guns and Pics

Sch3lp — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 13:53:14 +0000

My neighbour plays in a hardcore (rock) band called “Blade”.
Yesterday they released their first album and organized a true release party in café “De Nacht” in Hasselt.
Bands that played are: The Setup, Human Demise, Goldust (DE), Fungus Inc, Verify, No Recess, Triumph and Tragedy, For My Enemies, and of course Blade.
There was a war coming, and it had it’s victims… Reported incidents were someone with a broken nose, and a friend got a gaping wound above his eyebrow. Just watch the pics for the bloody mess he made:

The pictures of SerialChillers‘ shoutcast are online as well:

Then there’s this last thing you should watch, which has to do with the “DuckHunt” game on Wii Play. The 2nd stage is insane.

SerialChillers Shoutcast

Sch3lp — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 21:28:41 +0000

Attention !

This thursday I’m helping the SerialChillers set up a SHOUTCast server at their very own mixing grounds.
The cast will be tested on the spot, which means you can expect a live mix broadcast from 21:00-23:00 (GMT+0100).
So mark your calendars and set your alarms, because this thursday the (Serial)Chill is on.
You will be able to find the link on their MySpace and I’ll probably be able to post it on this site as well, so check either of them.

Well that was that… I ran against a few problems, but in the end it worked on time. Too bad we only had a peak of 8 listeners, but at least we had one trusty listener who heard the entire set. Until next time!