European Championships 2007

Slalom Skateboarding in the UK.

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Paul Price
Pavel Racing Team
Pavel Racing Team
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Joined: Fri May 02, 2003 2:00 am

European Championships 2007

Post by Paul Price » Thu Sep 13, 2007 6:21 pm

Race Report European Championships 2007

FRIDAY

A team of six of us set out on Friday morning with Ryan air.

Martin, Paul, Sam, Pat, Richard and Louis were the crew.

Due to a 15 kg weight limit we were limited to what we could bring. The Europeans arrived by car and had the luxury of bringing a lot of kit.

At Grenoble airport we rented a new Mondeo station wagon but it could not fit us all so 2 of us had to get the bus into town and then we had to shuttle people to the hostel.

The Hostel was bunk beds and very basic, with no towels, and a basic breakfast. Up at 7am each day to get to the race site for 8.30am. This was no holiday, races are hard work.

SATURDAY

Racing started with the Giant Slalom on a closed off public road in Grenoble. a head -wind meant peoples second times were generally slower even with a change of wheels.
Paul Price got his photo on the front page of the newspaper!

Then we moved to the stadium for the special slalom. A lot of racers were unhappy the race was to be held on the flat, a fast hill is so much more exciting. The Amateurs, Juniors and Women finished their racing and then a difficult pro course was set up. The plan was to run the pros at night but the flood lights were not strong enough so at 8pm it was decided to race on the Sunday morning.

A riders party in a club out of town included a swimming pool and free vodka. a lot of racers had sore heads the next day, and some arrived too late to race.

SUNDAY

The Pro Special Slalom was very close, with 0.5 a second between the top 10 qualifing times. The cones started at just over 5ft, got wider then tighter towards the end. The racing was intense, and anyone could have won. Janis from Latvia was the eventual victor.

Then a tight straight course of 40 cones at 1.7m was set up with some very close racing for the Juniors, women and Pros. It required concentration and focus to do well in this race. Janis was on form and won here too.

In the afternoon the Nations Cup was run, with teams of 3 from each qualifying Nation.

At 6pm the prize giving got underway, including money down to fifth place.
To the victors the spoils. We went back to the hostel, cleaned up and went out for a well deserved meal.

The best UK Pro result was Paul Price with a 4th place and the Best UK Am result was Sam Gordon with a 7th place.

So I hope we see more UK slalomers racing at next years events. Get training now!

More pics http://www.flickr.com/photos/39089904@N ... 964901781/
UK Team
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Luca and Janis
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Track
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Front page
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