[2003][Paris] Paris World Cup first impressions

Chris Eggers · Post by **Chris Eggers** » Mon May 26, 2003 12:25 pm

I am sure that there will be many complete reports and photos, but I thought I´d post my first impressions, sitting on my left cheek only, and thoughts as they are still fresh. Maybe someone will add to my post to see many different views of this unique weekend. I will post them as they come to my mind.............

Luca: Rodney Mullen of slalom. Skated on 20+ year old equipment with super hard wheels and rocked, put all 300 $ decks to shame. Luca you simply rock. I have never seen someone going so fast through 1,5 meter cones. impressive.

Vlad and his girl: super funny and nice both of you. Vlads skills are impressive and I mean it. also putting 300 $ boards to shame with his Planker. Rocker.

The Americans: Thanks for coming over, you guys are super funny and are welcome as always. Great talking to you and hanging out there with you. Did we give you an impression what tight slalom means?
I think so, and I think you had fun.

The UK guys: Simon you ok again? It was hard to see you slam. Don´t talk so loud. One tip: never trust an englishman when he says there is good food in that restaurant. The food s...ed. The restaurant was great. But the food was not. Anyway. Mike, I am sure you will give me back those 6/100ths some time soon.

The Swiss: Gruezi mitanand! chchchchchch

The organisation: Thanks everyone who helped and thanks to Jani for doing it. I know there were a lot of difficulties, but be sure that we had fun. Don´t be dissapointed and do it again, please!
It was a good event, and we will return.

The site: There is not one other like it. Incredible. I was filming with Kennies camera when Bruce Brewington climbed up on the start ramp with a grin on his face. He said out loud: "Chris, listen: I have been waiting for 25 years to see this and stand here, this is GREAT!" and he meant it.
The Trocadero is nothing else than beautiful and the pavement is still very good.
There is no runout which was difficult for me, but I will practice my footbrakes before next time.

The course: I can only talk about the special Pro and Am course because we had to leave early. The special was the fastest I ever skated through a slalom course. It was scary for me because of the runout. I fell during one of my footbrake attempts. My TSG helmet saved my life. The course was not very difficult but fast and pumpable. Funfunfun.

The Am course was about the same but wider.

Paris: dirty, expensive, big. Lots of confusing streets. Concentrated culture. Nearly everywhere you look there is some kind of historic building.
Paris is great. I good experience everyone should make. A must see.
French cuisine is not great.

Looking forward to seeing everyone in Switzerland in June.

Marcus Seyffarth · Post by **Marcus Seyffarth** » Mon May 26, 2003 3:59 pm

It was awesome!

I met so many cool, nice, fun people in just two days that you thought it wasn't possible... Super fun, great atmosphere and a lot of racing!

Being my/our first international competition and still it feels like you already know most of the racers tells me that this is good... In most sports that I have done it has always been hard to get to know people since everybody stay to themselves or the ones that know each other keep the group closed. Here everybody was welcome...

This really makes me wanna go to more competitions and it sucks that I can't make it to Greuningen!

So even though saturday mostly rained out, we had a little cabel problems that made a few do reruns (hey at least I was one of them) I had a great time!!!

I'm definately gonna build a shorter faster board and try to make it in the pro class next time, now we know what's needed...

Great event Jani, Corky and everybody else that made it come through!

Dan, will you post the results on this site somewhere?

And finally, the trophies look great at my desk and hope to see you all soon!!!!!!!

Paul Price · Post by **Paul Price** » Mon May 26, 2003 5:23 pm

Here is my first impressions. Mike Stride, Simon Levene and I took the train to Paris on Friday.
We had a good afternoon practice on the Friday.
Saturday it rained so we stood around all day. Sam and the other English guy were there too.
Dined out on fine food and wine and beer and brandy.
Sunday we had showers but got some races in but interrupted by the rain.
The surface was good and people went to harder wheels. tight slalom was fast on the constant slope
and here a lot of people had lathed wheels and narrower trucks.
Simon and I had to leave early (at 8pm for the train!) and missed the GS.
Simon had a slam but is OK; he was really charging. we had a tough trip back as he had difficulty carrying his bags.
Overall the event was marred by the weather and the subsequent loss of race time, some timing problems meant both lanes did not always work.
On a positive note the event brought together a lot of racers from Italy, Sweden, France, Germany and other countries and there were a lot of new, young slalom racers.

Glenn S · Post by **Glenn S** » Mon May 26, 2003 5:55 pm

Event pictures by konogan.com:
http://www.konogan.com/riderz/index.html
big pictures on the front page here:
http://www.konogan.com/index.html

Hans Koraeus · Post by **Hans Koraeus** » Mon May 26, 2003 7:26 pm

Trocadero in Paris is a skate mecca. We should always at least once a day get down on our knees turning our heads in the direction of the eiffeltower and remember all the skate history that has past by there. And now we have another happening incrusted in the Trocadero stone of history.

Seriously, this is the best skate venue in the world. It's such a great place. And hopefully the Americans will head back home with lot's of inspiration and great storys. We expect more Americans next time as we do of all other nationalities. 2003 is just the start of a new golden age of slalom racing at Trocadero.

There was a lot of rain, stress and work before and during the competition. It seemed like the gods had decided to give us a hard time from the start. Luckily there where many to help out and though it many times looked hopeless we never gave up and worked hard to get things rolling.

More than half of the fun of going to skateboard competitions is to meet all skating friends, old and new. Having fun on and off the course and creating new skate history. This is what makes it worth all the hard work. It was a quite big organisation and I was just a very small part of it all. So I can just imagine the hard work of everyone else involved. Hopefully they will not be discouraged to pull it off again. We (I) want it so badely to happen again.

Here are some of my early thoughts...
- Luca's comeback! Luca is back on the track and seems to have preserved some (a lot) of his form. He still is the king. And sadly for those who will want to catch in on him he will get even better, believe me.
- Great meeting JG again. Last time was in Paris 1995. I've got the feeling he has got better since then. He had some grave problems with his flight planing but somehow managed to come out on top of it in the end. So also with his skating results. Instead of having to fly home on sunday and missing all the events he finshed with some very good results and a free ticket home. He also help me out putting on some new bushings on my Trackers. They totally changed the feeling of the board. I can't say honestly if it was for the better but I didn't have the time or the force to put the old ones back in again. And concidering my execellent results let's be nice and say: "Thank's John, those bushings really got my board going."
- Great meeting Vlad. Now I will understand much better his sense of humour in his topics. It's so much more interesting when you have a face/person to link with the text authors in the forum. And great to see him skate as well. I think he enjoyed the scene even though he would have liked and hoped to give Luca a match. Sorry Vlad but it's back to the gym again. And yes, I almost forgot. If you need any giant slalom tips just give me call.

- Jani "sandbag" Söderhäll. Jani was a lot under stress and had no time for practice at all. But this is when he is at his best. Putting together some boards the night before the race. Doing a couple of pumps before the race and off he go directly in the competition. And despite of this he got some excellent raw times (best even!). But with no practice and new board setups the security wasn't there. Too many cones where hit. When that minor problem is solved he will be ready to take on Luca himself. Don't forget he actually did beat Luca at the Verrieres Open in 1995.
- Dan Gesmer was helping out a lot with the time administration. Dan with all his traveling is almost constantly jetlagged and is falling asleep now and then, wether it is in the car, in a chair somewhere or in the restaurant. Dan was a great help and sponsor of the event. We had a lot of fun and hard worked hard together. Especially thanks for telling us about this great place who served the most delicious chocolat cakes found on this planet. Chris Eggers, French desserts are excellent. But the best is only for the well informed. I'll give you the address for next time you visit Paris. But then again you might not care about chocolat cakes. Vlad's girlfriend did though. And Vlad may tell you the rest of the story. Dan and Vlad could never agree on those buns though.
- The Swedish team did a great competition among the amateurs. Coming from nowhere they took 2 first places, 2 second places and lot's of other good placements. This is looking good for the future.
- The American team also did very well. I don't know exactly how many trophy's they took but it was a lot. I'm sure we will see them all coming back to Europe again very soon.
- I'm sooo tiredfhgkj...

Chris Eggers · Post by **Chris Eggers** » Tue May 27, 2003 8:49 am

Hey Hans, I know the desserts are good, but I cannot live on chocolate alone, well if I don´t want to look like Michele S.

By the way, yes there were a lot new faces, especially from Switzerland. What will happen? What influence will the past event have? Will it kick off? Is it too early to tell?
We will see.....

Nicolas GAZZOLA · Post by **Nicolas GAZZOLA** » Tue May 27, 2003 11:34 am

Hi guys,

I'm one of the organisators. I'm so happy to read all your positive comments !!!

Next year It will be bigger and better organized !!!

I hope to see all of you for the second edition !

Thanks for coming ...

Dieter Fleischer · Post by **Dieter Fleischer** » Tue May 27, 2003 2:24 pm

Paris Slalom World Cup … It had been an very nice weekend for me.

First I want to thanks a lot all the stuff from the Riderz association for the nice weekend we spend on 24-25 of Mai 2003 at Trocadero in Paris. I also want to give special thanks to Jani Söderhäll and Dan Gesmer who supported this competition.

Many nations had been represented, America, England, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, … and contributed so to the unique ambiance. Without any doubt, it was the Italian Luca Gianmarco who dominated the Slalom races as before during the great ISSA years (1988-1995).

Gianluca is still using a simple hard wooden board, very hard wheels, 95 shore A, and some classic trucks from the 70’s. He doesn’t need sophisticated material. The American Slalomer’s arrived with highly sophisticated boards, wheels and trucks, and made us dreaming. That’s part of the American dream, always on the top level of the technology, remembering us where the roots from our sport are from.

What to say about myself? I had a lot of fun, especially on Sunday, where the weather was much better then the day before. I’m happy that I finally participated at this competition. I hadn’t been prepared to affront some of the best skaters in the world, as I quietly stopped Slalom training. The longskate (Longboard) replaced the short board in my life. Seeing all this Slalomers, sharing an unique ambiance, gave me the courage to restart slalom training from time to time … There was an small consolation for me, … as it was raining shortly on Sunday, I changed my Slalom board into my Downhill board and during this time and I managed for the first time to enter the real 360 slide. Thanks to Céderic who gave me some information of how to do it.

Of course, all wasn’t perfect on the organisation side. I felt like on some of the other skateboarding competitions we had many years ago, but it was the first time that the Riderz Association had setting up such an event. Thanks again to the Riderz team for organizing such a big event.

Keep Skating, Dieter

http://www.longwheels.com

Nicolas GAZZOLA · Post by **Nicolas GAZZOLA** » Tue May 27, 2003 3:03 pm

It was the first time for us ( Association Riderz ) and we are already working to improve the next edition. Thanks to Jani for his help, also if he had some big technical problems I don't think that so much competitors would have make the travel without his support.

Jani Soderhall · Post by **Jani Soderhall** » Tue May 27, 2003 4:14 pm

Event pictures from Globe (Alain):

http://www.konogan.com/riderz/globe-web-2/index.html

Jani Soderhall · Post by **Jani Soderhall** » Tue May 27, 2003 4:28 pm

Event pictures from Brice:

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/pajbam/riderz_PSWC_2003/

Jani Soderhall · Post by **Jani Soderhall** » Tue May 27, 2003 4:32 pm

Jean-Paul Alavoine, France (left),
Bruce Brewington, USA (right)

Vlad Popov · Post by **Vlad Popov** » Tue May 27, 2003 7:07 pm

VLAD and VICTORIA FOTO

More pictures, srories and impressions later. Much work after a 4-day weekend.

Vlad.

Jani Soderhall · Post by **Jani Soderhall** » Tue May 27, 2003 8:47 pm

With a whole day of rain Saturday and 3 categories of special slalom, 3 of tight, 2 of giant and 2 of roller skating it wasn't easy to do it all during the Sunday.

Add to that more technical mishaps than we deserved and it was understandable that the Sunday was pretty long, and that we had to cut some events short to be able to complete all the events, albeit without the head-to-head finals.

We may not have handled it in the best of ways, but the task was overwhelming and this was our first major event in many, many years.

You bet we've learned our lesson, and that we'll be even better prepared for next year!

We're very enthusiastic and hope that this first major event on the Trocadero for 13 years will be the kick-off for a renewed interest in slalom skateboard racing in France.

The extremely positive response from many of the visiting skaters helped keep the spirit up and it tells us it was worth it all. Thank you for your encouragement!

Also, judging from the response on the French forum http://www.Riderz.net there's an enormous amount of excitement as the to level of racing and the friendliness of the visiting racers.

I'd like to extend an warm thank you to the Riderz Association for pulling this off, especially Nina, Nicolas, Camille and Alain for all the preparations and infra-structure and the overall organization, but also to: Dan Gesmer - behind the results spreadsheet, Patrick Bontemps behind the timer, Corky, Bernard Boissin and Marcus Seyffarth for dealing with the timing equipment, the cone judges and all the others who helped out during the two days.

Thank you all for coming and sharing this weekend with us!

Chris Eggers · Post by **Chris Eggers** » Tue May 27, 2003 9:30 pm

Jani that picture of Bruce and Jean Paul leaves me breathless and it will make so many people envious for not having been there.
Be prepared for a stampede of slalom skateboarders travelling to Paris next year if you decide to say:

THE WORLDS WILL BE IN PARIS NEXT YEAR

Be prepared, Paris, better be prepared

Hans Koraeus · Post by **Hans Koraeus** » Thu May 29, 2003 5:17 pm

If there will be World Champ in Paris next year I would have liked to include Friday as a race day also. It would be interesting to know what people think about this. It's true that some would have to be forced to take one day of vacation for this but I mean, it's the World Championships we are talking about. And many going to Paris would probably take some days off anyway. The advantage with Paris is that it's a great place for vacation. Send your wife/husband shopping/seightseeing or if you have kids send them all to Disneyland.

Friday could then take a lot of time away from the weekend for practicing and qualifications. And one more day also means more margins for rainy days. Just a thought.

Jani Soderhall · Post by **Jani Soderhall** » Thu May 29, 2003 5:34 pm

As far as I have understood Jack Smith is planning the Morro Bay race as a three day event in September this year. Wise if there are many racers (109 last year!).

It's hard to fit several disciplines into the same day. Hard for the organizers and hard for the skaters.

Etienne de Bary · Post by **Etienne de Bary** » Fri May 30, 2003 6:10 pm

just a few things i'd like to say:
- All the generation of young riderz who started slalom together with me last winter have been impressed by the human qualities of the international pros community.
- Jani was certainly not at his best, a bit of tension may be stimulating, but he was really falling apart, sick with exhaustment.
- if Luca is 1 second ahead of everybody else, there are also normal pro level guys like Jean-Paul Alavoine, who rode exactly as fast as Vlad after leaving him one second to use him as rabbit, ahaha it was simultaneous chrono !
Jean-Paul had not seriously skated since the previous Trocadero event, We're trying to get his buddy José deMatos back on stage too... José was always a little bit faster ; you guys try to kick Jean-Pierre back on wheels to make the trio complete
- We want Ransom and Chicken, ...

Etienne de Bary · Post by **Etienne de Bary** » Fri May 30, 2003 6:13 pm

and ... remind me next year to post a list of restaurants.

Vlad Popov · Post by **Vlad Popov** » Fri May 30, 2003 8:58 pm

Paris Impressions.

No Ketchup at restaurants (!)
No SUVs. No BIG cars. Fast trains.
No more jumping metro gates (?) It was a national sport in the 1990s, and now they have taller gates. Pity.
Trocadero. Trocadero surface. Trocadero hill.
Luca’s skating.
US Team. Emotions. Tears. The dream come true.
Sweet Sweeds.
Tough Brits .
Simon’s accent/speech. Victoria wishes all men would speak English like that.
Michael Stride offline. It’s not what you think.
Dan’s, Jani’s and Corky’s sleepless nights.
Dan’s, Jani’s and Corky’s help in running the Cup.
Gilmour’s comeback (pulling a last-minute Gilmour on the airline).
Gilmour’s outfit(S).
Gilmour’s flirting instead of practicing.
Gilmour’s missing the last GS gate.
Local slalom skaters. Hopefully more slalomers soon.
Drinking German beer and smoking an American cigarette bummed off an Englishman in Trocadero in the rain.
German Freestyle show.
Paris. It has this something that makes you want to go back.

Vlad Popov · Post by **Vlad Popov** » Fri May 30, 2003 9:05 pm

End of busy workweek. Time to post more.

Jani’s announcements in English complimented the race. It was really good to know who’s racing whom/when, and especially good to know times AND ranks after each run. Thank you Jani. Please find a good English-speaking announcer who would do just that next year while you race.

Corky. The best (or one of the best?) amateur skaters in EU.
Certainly a pro organizer. If not for Hans and Dan it’d be a mess. They worked really hard to keep things moving under very difficult circumstances.
Pro driver too! A tour de France, any time of day and night. Don’t have to even ask for it. Versailles at 1 AM? No problem. Thanks man!

Jani. A shot from a different angle. A man who defines the term “sandbagger”. If you don’t know what sandbagging is, ask the expert. And if you think you know what sandbagging is, wait till you see a real deal in action.

Here’s a scoop. After qualifying 5th, Jani pulls “a Jani” (a legitimate sandbagging term from now on) on me and makes me feel like going backwards on that hill! All while posting the fastest row time of the day. Didn’t register though. My timer didn’t work, so don’t look for it in the results.

Also, the Paris trophies are great. I’m yet to see anyone who keeps the prize money on the shelf and shows it off to his friends:
”What’s that 100 doing on the wall?”
“Oh, that...this is that hundred I won in Paris last year”.

Trophies have more value then money. Money gets spent. Trophies get to stay.

Thank you for the race (and more) and see you next year in Paris.

Vlad.

Vlad Popov · Post by **Vlad Popov** » Fri May 30, 2003 9:45 pm

Here’s another story.

Jani’s announcing and trying to talk to me at the same time.
“Do you think we’ll get to race with you head to head?”

I replied: ”You should probably consider racing in the Amateur class after you qualify”.

Jani - in my face, with no smile on his face: “I WILL RACE YOU!!!!”

I qualify 4th. Only top 4 advance to the final round. So, I’m facing Luca in the first final run.
A couple of weeks before the comp I told JG that I want to qualify 16th so that I can face Luca in the first round and go home happy. That was like a dream come true.
Then they decided to include top 8 qualifiers in the finals (coz there's more to slalom racing then watching 4 finalists go head-to-head). Now the bracket changed and I have to face #5, who coincidently and very casually happens to be..... JANI. On the first 10 cones I feel like I’m going backwards. Very bad feeling. Very bad.

I think it’s just a coincidence. Two of them to be exact.

Vlad.

Etienne de Bary · Post by **Etienne de Bary** » Fri May 30, 2003 10:36 pm

i remember writing "-check your ribs" in that "right slope" post...
actually 3 people were hurt : Fred FFF slalomer from Lyon fell on his shoulder during practice, he got so angry he just came to his car and rode back home (4 hours ?), to the hospital. As Kenny Molica who tried all day long to hide a sprained knee, by going around with that big smile, got to cure this properly, thanx for the DVD.

Hans Koraeus · Post by **Hans Koraeus** » Sat May 31, 2003 2:46 pm

Jani’s announcements in English complimented the race. It was really good to know who’s racing whom/when, and especially good to know times AND ranks after each run. Thank you Jani. Please find a good English-speaking announcer who would do just that next year while you race.

Vlad, very goodie thing you mentioned it. Jani did it very well. And since he's speaking French too he's perfect for the job in Paris. But can you believe it, there was someone critizising him for talking too much. I can tell you he was not. He was just filling up dead time. Just too bad he has to race too. Maybe we could get him a wireless mic next time. Then we could even get some live comments directly from the course...
"Okey, I'm ready to start. I see Vlad on the other start ramp in the white course. He's already shaking. Beep, beep, beep, biiiip! Ohey, I'm going down the start ramp. I will pump quite hard in the beginning to get ahead of Vlad. Oh, ih, ah. Let me turn my head to see how Vlad is doing. Okey, he's doing fine but I'm ahead as planned. Look now how I will stop pushing so hard to keep the suspense. Some call it sandbagging. Me, I call it. Well i don't call it anything. Hey it's me, Jani. Swisch. Okey here we pass the finish line. What an excellent race! I will get up side by side with Vlad to get some first comments. Vlad! Any comments? [Vlad] You damn sandbagger! I'll empty your bag into your bearing for next race."

Hans Koraeus · Post by **Hans Koraeus** » Sat May 31, 2003 2:58 pm

Also, the Paris trophies are great. Trophies have more value than money. Money gets spent. Trophies get to stay.

I totally agree! At least until we have the Volvo Skateboard Slalom Series rolling. Here are some pics of the Paris World Cup 2003 throphies.

Join the ISSA 25 cone series. One cyber race every second month!

Regular sessions allow newbies to join our community and discover slalom racing.