I’m pretty happy with my performance. My goal was to get into the quarter finals, which i did. I also almost made it into the semi finals. Me and Mark Kempton both had to skate an extra run because the judges couldn’t decide who to send into the semis. In the end Mark won, and I left proud of my self, carrying a new resolve to add some more technical tricks to my arsenal. Overall I placed 9= (which means i tied with 4 other skaters for 9th place) out of 22 skaters, i think.

While i was there I got a new pair of the 2008 Seba Highs, which i’m working on breaking in currently.

Naomi and I also discussed details of starting a world freestyle team, which i’ll write more about soon.

my quarter final group

The Union Square sessions
On Wednesday night, Sebastien and Naomi met us at Union Square for our usual skating. We had a much bigger turn out, though, and the energy was really high. Then on Friday, Phil and Jim (from the UK) and Igor, Chloe and Olivier (From France) joined us, and as you can imagine it got even more interesting. The mix of Union Square freestyle with European freestyle slalom actually drew quite a large crowd. So big, in fact, that a break dancing performance that was originally on the other side of the square (two blocks away) actually moved their show right next to us to try to get their crowd back! After these two nights, I was already content with how the event had turned out, and it hadn’t even “officially” begun yet!

The Competitions
The International Battle was great to watch, and we even had two Americans make it to the semi finals (Evan and myself both got 3rd in our semi-final groups, just missing the finals, and tying for 5th place). Then came the US Battle, which was also pretty exciting. You could really see each skater pushing their limits to try and do their best. The top four were me, Evan, Stacy and Denni. Next we had an off-cones freestyle battle, with Team USA vs Team World. It was a bit light hearted and involved lots of trash talk between the teams, but the audience decided that Team USA was the better freestyle team, giving two of the top three spots (1st & 3rd) to Americans. Oh we did speed slalom as well :P.

Battle US 2007 Results

The Food
I’d be letting a major part of the event slip if I didn’t mention all the great restaurants that the local New York skaters took us too. We had a tour of asia, with some of the best Japanese, Schechaun and Korean food I’ve ever had. Thanks to Pete, Shawn and Young-sang for picking great places to eat.

Naomi is gunna buy me a copy, and she send me a scan of it already.

They decided that Sebastien would be good for all the action shots, while Naomi and I would be best to portray the attitude of a true skater.

follow the link for the picture…

http://www.freestyleskaters.org/2007/06/11/paris-slalom-world-cup/

Now there’s tons of other details to figure out, but its a huge relief to have the venue squared, because i’ve officially announced it and people can start buying plane tickets, etc.

Once i get back from PSWC, BattleUS planning will take up most of my free time.

I almost was not able to go, because tickets were very expensive, but my very awesome and supportive wife cashed in all her frequent flyer miles to get me a ticket.

There’s going to be an amateur and pro category, but I decided to go for the pro group because I think I was on the borderline in germany, and besides, Naomi not-to-subtly called me out in her inlineplanet article:

The German competition in Bremen took a different approach and split the competitors into Pro and Amateur. (I don’t think Jeremy will be competing in the amateur section again!)

So I guess its time for me to start getting beat up by skaters who are leaps and bounds better than me. Which is all good by me, since thats what I did at BattleUK, where there was no amateur group.

So wish me luck. And by that I mean that I’m lucky enough to learn a few new moves while I’m there, and maybe do well enough to move up just one level in the battle pyramid!

UPDATE: Seba told me to consider doing the Amateur Battle, since there will be many great skaters in that category, he said i’d have more fun, so I switched.

Also, there’s an article on inlineplanet about my trip to Bremen.

Naomi Grigg is coming to Philadelphia the weekend of June 23rd & 24th.

Sat & Sun morning will be the advanced workshop
Sat & Sun afternoon will be the beginner workshop

Naomi’s workshop is behind just about every US slalom skater who can do more than the crazy, so don’t miss this chance to literally add anywhere from 5 to 15 tricks to your arsenal!

I did the beginner workshop last year and i’ll be doing the advanced one this year.

I gave out lots of USFSA stickers, and practiced cones while Tom & Sarah’s daughter Emma ran around the Art Museum area.

We did tons of skating over Friday, Saturday and Sunday. A small group of skaters showed up Friday night including Seba and Igor, so our small group got to take advantage of some personal training time with the two of them. This totally rocked! Seba worked on heeling and toe-heel spinning with me, both of which I was able to put into my battle runs thanks to his help.

On saturday we skated for at least a few hours before any official events started which was great, because i got to meet tons of skaters, and so many great skaters showed me things i didn’t know yet. Overall this event had tons of unstructured time for skaters to do whatever they wanted, which really made it worth the trip. The “Rollersport Staddion” where it all took place is basically a perfectly smooth cement floor the size of three basketball courts at least. It was perfectly level too.

Sometime in the early afternoon we started with the amateur battle. Like i said, i worked-in the stuff Seba taught me, and I also put in the multiple grande voltes linked together in a row, which JB showed me saturday morning. I think these things help distinguish my runs. At each level, I hoped to go to the next level, but wasn’t sure if I would. Each time i got to the next round i was more and more surprised. It was really exciting to compete with people in the same skill level as me. (as opposed to battleuk, which was really fun, but i knew I wouldn’t get out of the first round)

When I got to the finals round I actually started planning my runs based on what the other 3 skaters were doing. I could see we all had a chance to win it so I wanted to make sure I didn’t let anyone do something where i hadn’t done something comparable. One nice thing about being in the final four was that I got to skate for the whole battle, instead of turning into a spectator at some point.

After each skater did all four runs, we each did a “special move.” Basically one move that you do to impress the judges. For the finals round I wanted to do something unique and I decided to do a union square style hand plant that Evan had taught me. I felt like it was the perfect move to say “Hey, I’m here representing Philadelphia and NYC”. After I did it, I knew it was a good choice because everyone seemed to react positively.

They ran all the other events before announcing any results, so I quickly forgot about my competition and started having fun again (actually the battle was really fun, but its always more fun when no-one’s watching). I tried to at least talk to all the great skaters there and took some new moves from as many as I could. I spent the rest of the day either skating or watching the other competitions.

When the results were announced I really couldn’t believe it as they went from 4th to 2nd and hadn’t called my name yet. All the London guys (JB, Phil and Nathan) hung out with me, and generally made me feel like one of their own had won. They chanted “U-S-A” for me. It was nice to have a surrogate country to take me in like that. I got a “trophy” of the “Four Musicians of Bremen” (a chick, cat, dog and donkey) and a set of 231mm Seba frames.

In the Pro Battle, Igor came in first, ahead of M.Gurevich (Rus) and Chris Fessel(Ger). JB came in fourth in the crazy speed competition (yes they did crazy as the speed move). Phil was in the top 8 of the Pro battle- probably would have been 6th, but they didn’t run the battle for 6-8th places. Oliver, my new friend from Finland proved that two guys skating all by themselves really can learn some tricks: He got 4th in the Pro battle! Congrats to everyone.

On Sunday there were no official events, just more skating. Me and the london guys hung out with two really cool guys from Finland all day. Most of the skaters had gone home at this point, but JB and Nathan taught me some more tricks, and JB helped me make up a list of things to practice so I don’t forget them all. I think JB and Naomi are going to start fighting over who taught me more moves in the near future.