Yesterday we held the Swedish Championships 2005 and I was there ready to give away my medals. However, I had one goal in mind: avoiding being beat by too many.
Anders Hellquist, Team coneRacing, was unbeatable and got away with both gold medals and probably even had energy to spare in case somebody would get too close. He's got such a cool style making it look as if he's not even making an effort.
Marcus Seyffarth was eager to get those medals making his last race before child care becomes his first priority, but there was nothing he could do against Anders.
A bit surprised I managed to capture second place in special and I was really pleased with being close to Anders and fending off all the others, including Marcus. I had to work pretty hard for it though. The real surprise of the day was that Mikael Hadestrand, Henrik Wadsten and Hans Göthberg was running so fast. Peter Klang, just back from a three week beach vacation just had to stand back as those guys were bouncing in and out of the podium places.
Straight was even harder on my untrained muscles and although I had all the motivation to charge hard there was nothing I could do against the top guys Anders and Marcus. Anders easily took top honors while Marcus just as easily took second place. Every now and then he makes extremely fast runs showing he's right up there, but too often those runs also comes with a few cones making the final time look a bit less extraordinary. With 1/100:th of a second margin I captured the third podium place just ahead of amateur rookie Henrik Wadsten (only a junior when racing in the 80's). This guy is fast and it looks like Sweden will have excellent Pro and Am teams next year!
In the end I was pleased to see that I could fend off all but Anders and Marcus. A tenth or two a second and there would been a few more guys just ahead of me. Hmm, maybe I really should get back to skating every now and then.
Special:
1. Anders Hellquist
2. Jani Söderhäll
3. Marcus Seyffarth
Straight:
1. Anders Hellquist
2. Marcus Seyffarth
3. Jani Söderhäll
Juniors:
I think Hadestrands sons Victor and Viking took both first places but there was a good fight and Angie Gustafsson was second in special, an event she had not even planned to enter!
Overall it was a very nice well run little event. No glitches, some rain, but we only had to stop for 20 minutes or so. I'm already looking forward to next years race. The park where we raced has great potential and there are some really nice hills for special and giant slalom downhill.
Today I went to visit the local indoor park "Area51" currently under reconstruction. It's an extremely cool indoor spot with street areas, half pipe with corner, miniramp, bowl (wooden) and more to come. Plans are to shave off the width of the existing streetarea to allow for slalom to be run, especially in winter time.
It used to be part of the SKF (!) bearing factory and is a series of tunnels deep into the granite rock built to withstand a war attack on the facilities.
Check out
www.bunkeberget.com and be sure to visit if you're ever in town!
...and make sure you come to the next race in Gothenburg, whether it's the Swedish Championships or not!
/Jani
