More On Gross Gerau, Lille Results & Photos

More On Gross Gerau: In case you haven’t had enough on Gross Gerau in the last couple of days, Brampton skater Aaron Arndt wrote about his experiences in the lead group in Quick Post – Gross Gerau. Pretty good stuff for us mortals to read.

If pictures of Gross Gerau is what you seek, then you should click on the following links from Maarten Slembrouck: Day 1 and Day 2. Lots and lots of photos from different categories are included in the galleries.

If you click on this gallery, you’ll find 25 pages worth of photos from the 28th of April and 28 pages worth of pictures from the 29th. That makes enough to keep you busy, especially if your computer or internet connection is slow.


Gross Gerau Saturday- Crash! Photo by Steven Zimmermann

Gross Gerau Saturday- Photo by Steven Zimmermann

Gross Gerau Saturday- Photo by Steven Zimmermann

Gross Gerau Sunday- Photo by Steven Zimmermann
If you’re looking to read a report that is not in English, then you can go to Zepto Skate Team’s report on Gross Gerau.

Lille Results & Photos: The 2007 French Inline Cup’s 2nd stage took place this weekend- click the following links: Marathon Men, Marathon Women, Open Men, Open Women, Open Youth (6-9), Open Youth (10-13), Open Youth (14-17), and Hour Roller. Roller En Ligne has put the top-10 main results on their website.

If you’re after some pictures from the Lille FIC, Roller En Ligne is helping all of us out with this photo gallery. If you need video, the you can find an interview (en Francais) with the women’s marathon winner Justine Halbout by clicking here or pressing play below.



Lille FIC- photo from Roller En Ligne

Lille FIC- photo from Roller En Ligne

Gross Gereau Continues, WOW Emmeloord Pictures And Results

Gross Gereau Continues: The 2nd day of racing action at Gross Gerau is currently under way. Click here for the results- all of yesterday’s results (including corrected links to the 300’s) are up. Harriston’s Paisley Perrie came through with a strong 8th, 7th, and 9th place finishes out of 50-some odd skaters in the Schuler A (School A) category. If pictures is what you want to see, then here is where you should click. Looks like the pictures are posted by Kai Menze.


Gross Gereau- photo from Kai Menze

Gross Gereau- photo from Kai Menze

Gross Gereau- photo from Kai Menze

Gross Gereau- nothing good will come from this fall!!!- photo from Kai Menze
WOW Emmeloord Pictures And Results: While many fast skaters are racing this weekend is Gross Gereau, there was a whole bunch of awesome skaters taking to the 3rd World On Wheels race in Emmeloord. Click here for a report which includes the results (at the bottom) thanks to Skate Bond Nederland- here's the links to the results- Men A, Men B, Women A & B. PatinCarrera has posted a report (in Spanish) and Harm de Boer Fotografie has posted many eye-candy pictures (Men A, Women A & B, Men B).


WOW Emmeloord- women's A & B- photo from Harm de Boer Fotografie

WOW Emmeloord- tight finish in the men's A race with the win going to France's Alexis Contin- photo from Harm de Boer Fotografie

WOW Emmeloord- start of the men's B- photo from Harm de Boer Fotografie

WOW Emmeloord- men's A- photo from Harm de Boer Fotografie

Gross Gereau Results Coming In, 2007 RSO Outdoor Series Tentative Dates, OISC’s Mexicanidad Chiapaneca Report, Wheels

Gross Gereau Results Coming In: Good morning (it’s morning for me)- I wasn’t going to update my website today because I have a heck of a lot of training to do, but I’ve got a bit at time and there’s some good racing action going on this weekend in Gross Gereau Germany. I was pleasantly surprised to see the race website if being updated with results! Yes! This is really cool and check out the results could occupy a good part of all of our weekends. Click here to access the results. Just to give you some perspective about Gross Gereau- New Zealand's world champion Scott Alridge says in the World Inline Cup Blog ‘This weekend is one of the biggest track races in the World outside of the World Championships. With 120 senior men and 850 skaters total it will be a full-on weekend’.

2007 RSO Outdoor Series Tentative Dates: The 2007 RSO Outdoor Series dates have been proposed. I will update the RSO Series website another day when time permits and the races will be confirmed. The proposed dates are as follows- #1 June 2nd Ottawa (1 ½ hours away from Montreal- June 3rd is Quebec Cup), #2 June 30th Toronto (day before Canada Day Marathon in Cambridge near Toronto, so make a full weekend of it), #3 July 29th Bowmanville, and #4 August 26th Harriston (it’s on the banked track at the CITC).

OISC’s Mexicanidad Chiapaneca Report: OISC has posted a report from the Ottawa/ Montreal area skaters who competed recently in the Internacional Mexicanidad Chiapaneca 2007 in Tuxtla, Chiapas, Mexico. The report is called Six Canadians Race in Chiapas, Mexico.

Wheels: USA Rollersports’ 2007 list of certified inline speed wheels is available. Exciting stuff eh?

Video- 2001 To 2006, Maurao Guenci What Are You Doing At My School?, Aaron In Switzerland, Bologna 1000m Video, Links

Video- 2001 To 2006: I recently made a video which includes most of my unreleased/ not widely available footage that I took or that I have. The videos span 2001 to 2006. The video quality is pretty bad at the beginning, but it does get significantly better as the video goes on. The features footage from races including the Pan Am Champs, Toronto Inline Race Weekend, Worlds, Montreal, etc. Press play below or click here.


Maurao Guenci What Are You Doing At My School?: This morning, I went into the staff room to sip my scorching hot tea just as I do each morning at work. I decided to flip through the 2007 Guiness Book of Records and I was very pleased and equally surprised to find a photo and entry featuring Mauro Guenci. I find it cool that a good inline speed skating pictures is in the book, and that the book is all over the place. If the GBR readers are anything like me, some will want to try skating. I'm always thinking about what Guiness world record I can break, like the record for the # of people dressed in cell phone costumes at the same time. Anyways, the entry is along side awesome and interesting records such as Longest Paper Chains, Longest French Knitting, Movie Marathon, and Fastest Hand Knitted Sheep to Sweater.


Mauro Guenci in the 2007 Guiness Book of World Records- and it's a nice picture!
Aaron In Switzerland: Aaron Arndt has made it safely into Switzerland. Check out his site entry Flight Post (…not plane ride). Bill Begg mentioned that within a few hours of getting off the plane, ‘A bouncy & confident looking Aaron Richard Arnd't stepped off the aeroplane & 3 hours later was on a 2 hour Bike ride with Bont teamate Wayne Begg and Kiwi's Kalon Dobbin, Peter Micheal & DJ Nation.

Later on at Frauenfeld at 7pm he got a taste of Minute Minute exercise for an hour, with the above Group, Nicole Begg, Andrea Gonzales & fellow Canadians Andrew & Sigrid.

Of couse first up a very tall order, and you could not be expected to complete that, but Arnd't showed enough that he should be on the pace, when it comes to the marathon races’ Good luck Aaron!

Bologna 1000m Video: Click here of press play below for a video from a 1000-meter race in Bologna, Italy. I love the inside pass that the eventual race winner made.


Links: Click here for Fast International RollerSkating. My website (Peter’s Inline Racing Web Page) used to be on their main page. Then I stopped my site in 2005 and they took the PIRWP link off. I started up the site again and re-branded it to what you know as Speed Skate World, and SSW is now back on the FIRS main page.

Another cool link for you to explore is SkateResults.com. It’s a repository of tons and tons of ice race results. I saw it sometime last year- good stuff.

WIC Press, Virgilio Ochoa Abadia Interview, $1.2 Million for Oval Project, France News, Rocking The Bolts, 3 Point Success, Pictures- Italy

WIC Press: Rollerblade has posted an article called World Inline Cup Press for 2007 written by Tanya Dobbin.

Virgilio Ochoa Abadia Interview: Patinaje De Velocidad has posted an interview with Virgilio Ochoa Abadia. If you can’t read Spanish, run the article through Babel Fish. It will help you gain some more perspective on the central-American race scene.


Virgilio Ochoa Abadia- photo from Patinaje De Velocidad
$1.2 Million for Oval Project: This is great news for long track ice skaters in Toronto, Southern Ontario, and the rest of Canada; Federal Government Announces $1.2 Million for Oval Project.

France News: A couple of things that come out of France- First off, Roller En Ligne has posted a report on the national race from Mouilleron Le Captif. You can also find an interview (in French) with the Dijon FIC race organizer Thomas Dauvergne.


Finish of the Dijon marathon
Rocking The Bolts: A few days ago, Aaron Arndt posted (PM Roadskate...) about a skate that we went on. Before Aaron, Jesse, Jade, and Mister Pauley, and I left for the skate, Aaron took a picture of me. I know it’s silly, but I thought I’d throw it up here.


Yours truly, skinnier than ever- and proud of it!
3 Point Success: The Inline Planet has posted an article called 3-point Racing Skates Heat Up Sales for Bont. Good stuff for Bont, it’s nice to see/ read about a company doing well and having success. I wish this upon every skate manufacturer, vendor, retailer, and so own down the line.


Bont's 3 Points in action at the 2006 world championships
Pictures- Italy: Pattinaggio Bellusco has four galleries from the Campionati Interprovinciali Strada GE: A, B, C, and D.


Photo from Pattinaggio Bellusco

Photo from Pattinaggio Bellusco

From Toronto & Harriston To Europe, My Oh My Penan, Results- GBC Wilhelmshaven, Italian Championships (Savona), & Tuggen

From Toronto & Harriston To Europe: Aaron Arndt, Alex Perrie, and Paisley Perrie are all headed to Europe today from Toronto. I don’t think Aaron is going with the Perries, but they will all be at Gros Gereau in Germany for the big multi-day multi-track race. I might be getting some updates from Germany over the weekend, so stay tuned.

Aaron Arndt will be staying in Europe until sometime in September and then he will come back and challenge me for a top placement at Athens to Atlanta. Aaron is laying down the challenge on his website, saying that I need to learn to sprint. Well, I’ve learnt, and I will be ready to make sure that Aaron’s name is below mine in the results list. We both want the A2A win, but there’s room for only one of us. I’ll be going into this year’s A2A some 20-25 lbs lighter than last year, with better technique and better fitness. I will be dangerous.

As much as A2A is in my sights this year, my goals are set on qualifying for the Pan American Games and also competing well at the world championships. Training’s hard; it hurts, it’s not fun, it takes time, and it is precise and planned.

Part of my training is coaching and skating at the Toronto Inline Skating Club. We had a good practice last night, which included an fun elimination race and relays. With skaters like Aaron Arndt, Camilo Echeverri, Jade Pauley, and a reappearance of Dean Arndt (former top-20 worlds), practice can get quite competitive. Below are a few pictures and a short video that I took- press play or click here to view the video.


TISC group shot- a strong, fast, fit, and improving group of skaters

Early during the fun elimination race- the racing group was not allowed to skate in the top-4 positions of the group until close to the end of the race- this gave the fitness group a chance to shine

Elimination race again- through the corner

My Oh My Penan: Chile’s popular cutie top-skater Catherine Penan posed for the camera in her underwear- good stuff for those of you that like girls like Penan. A few top skaters (world medalists) asked me for photos of Catherine Penan because they liked her so much- but I think this one easily tops all of my photos of her that I have. Barry Publow is now thrown into the mix of racy pictures with a nude (but covered) photo of himself- it was taken a few years ago. The funny thing is that my friends from Mexico got draggen into this whole mess; ‘Nude dudes do not sell, except in gay environments (like this one in Mississauga >>)’. Hahahahaha, the picture comes from the party at 2005 worlds in China, and I thought that the cowboy hat was the coolest thing at that party.


Catherine Penan (photo cropped)- photo from SpeedSK8rs.com

Some good looking guys- popular with the ladies too!!
Results- GBC Wilhelmshaven, Italian Championships (Savona), & Tuggen: Finally, I managed to dig up the results from the Wilhelmshaven Skate Days German Blade Challenge.

Click here for the results from the 42km Italian Championships in Savona. Patin Carrera has posted a report.

Click here for the results from the race last weekend in Tuggen.

It’s A Struggle To Survive, US Speed Skating, WOW Men’s Finish Video, 2008 Worlds- Spain, Hamilton Pictures, MISC Stuff

It’s A Struggle To Survive: Andrew Love posted an entry that I really like; it’s called Liam and John. Andrew writes ‘speedskaters, even national team skaters like him, have to struggle financially to survive. It’s a reality of many sports that demand total dedication, especially the small ones, and is a topic worth a wheelbarrow of blog posts on its own’.

I think what Andrew says is completely true. The training requirements to perform at the top level are so demanding that a lot of athletes have to sacrifice their jobs and educations in order to train and perform. It’s hard to understand what an elite/ world class athlete need to go through in order to achieve goals and results, and I am in the process of learning that. What I think might be even harder is for those outside of the ‘real’ circle of athletes to understand just how much support is necessary for athletes to perform.

I am lucky because I have my university degree and teaching certifications- I chose to not sacrifice those. But trying to be an elite athlete now while working full-time or near full time leaves very little of not no room and time for the little (important) things like friends, shopping, family trips, and saving money.

You might find that athletes are coming to you year in and year out for you to donate money- there’s a reason; athletes in general have very little support and they need help.

US Speed Skating: In his latest two entries Spring Board meeting, pt. 1 and Spring Board Meeting, part II, Andrew Love examines and comments on the political machine that is US Speed Skating. Interesting commentary and perspective again from Andrew Love.

WOW Men’s Finish Video: Click here for a video (or press play below) of Yann Guyader edging out Sjoerd Huisman in WOW’s Domberg.


2008 Worlds- Spain: The 2008 World Roller Speed Skating Championships will be held in Gijon, Spain. Good stuff. See you there! Pretty cool that the website is up and running!


The track is looking good!
Hamilton Pictures: Candy Wong wrote about the first Hamilton Beach skate of the year. You can find some awesome pictures from danielcd by clicking here.


Skating is a beautiful sport- Eric Gee leading the group in Hamilton- Ed, where's your helmet?!- photo from danielcd

Morgan Williams and Sarah Hopkins- photo from danielcd
MISC Stuff: For you politically incline readers, here’s a good opportunity to read and respond about US Marathons being sanctioned. There’s a lot of posts in Should U.S. inline marathons be USARS-sanctioned? On RaceReports.net’s Forum.

I like this skate in advertising- Get More Skates in Advertising...


Skates in advertizing- photo from http://www.lenihan.org/halls_skate.htm

Race Reports- GBC, Gijon, Metrodome, Brit ST, Domberg WOW, Battle In Seattle, Australia Nats, & Finnish Indoor

Race Reports- GBC, Gijon, Metrodome, Brit ST, Domberg WOW, Battle In Seattle, Australia Nats, & Finnish Indoor: It's been a pretty busy weekend for me- I spent a lot of time training and then the work week started, so now I am spending a lot of time working! How exciting of a life eh? Actually, it's not too bad being me. I've collected a slew of updates/ news/ photos to post since my last SSW entry on Saturday. I'll put everything up in time. I've also selected a whole bunch of pictures of mine that I will publish later. So let's get into the interesting stuff-

You can find a report on the GBC (German Blade Challenge) team time trial on Bont’s Message Board. You can also find a team time trial report here and here on Zepto Skate Team. If you’re looking for a report on the marathon that took place the day after the team tt, click here. I am trying to dig up the results, hopefully I can link to them later.


Zepto Skate Team finishes 1st-3rd- photo from Zepto Skate Team and taken by Gerhard Schwierz
Mundo Patin is filled with reports from Spain's National League in Gijon- click here for the results. Three reports are posted: #1, #2, and #3. You can find lots of pictures from day 1, day 2, day 3, and bonus photos of racing.


Gijon day 1 racing action- photo from Mundo Patin

Gijon day 2 racing action- photo from Mundo Patin

Gijon day 3 chaotic racing action- photo from Mundo Patin
If you’re looking for results from the Metrodome Inline Marathon, use the following links: half marathon, advanced marathon, pro marathon, rec marathon, and team time trial. You can read Greg Major’s account of the event. The Inline Planet has posted a report.

From the ice short track world, you can find results from the British National Championships by clicking here.

Next, let’s go to Holland; you can find a report with the results (at the bottom) from the Unive World On Wheels in Domberg. Harm de Boer Fotografie’s photos can be found by clicking for the women’s, the men’s A, group b and group c.


Domberg WOW women's final sprint won by Nachi Shinazuka- photo from Harm de Boer Fotografie

Domberg WOW B group- photo from Harm de Boer Fotografie

Domberg WOW men's A group led by Martijn Kromkamp- photo from Harm de Boer Fotografie

Domberg WOW men's A group led by Arjan Mombarg- photo from Harm de Boer Fotografie

Domberg WOW men's final sprint for 1st between Sjoerd Huisman and Yann Guyader (he won)- photo from Harm de Boer Fotografie
Click here (RaceReports.net) and here (Hyper) to find some results and some chit chat and reporting from the Battle in Seattle. They talk about the new hyper wheel in the RaceReports.net thread.

Australia’s Speed Skating Nationals results can be found by clicking here (part 1) and here (part 2).

Finally, the last of the reporting of results comes out of Finland. If you’re a regular traveller onto Bont’s Message Board, you’ll have noticed a new thread about Finland. In that thread, you’ll find some results from the Finnish Indoor Nationals.

Quebec Cup, Know Your CIC Rules, Dream Chaser’s Rain Race, USARS Update- Results, Inline Planet WIC Blog

Quebec Cup: It looks like the Quebec Cup is set for its first ever race on June 3rd. If you’d like to interact with Quebec Cup peoples, there’s a Quebec Cup forum just for you, and it’s all new!


Racing in Quebec is really fun, especially when you have to slay these skating monsters!
Know Your CIC Rules: The latest set of rules from the CIC are available on the USA Roller Sports website- some changes to note include the points/ elimination race- basically, the points and the eliminations will occur on different laps and first & second place skaters will earn points.


2005 world championshpis- junior men
Dream Chaser’s Rain Race: How exciting it is to race in the rain eh? NOT! Toronto skater Candy Wong is sharing her report from the Minto Run For Reach in her post Sigh, Another Consecutive Rain Race. I might as well take this opportunity to link to some photos that Candy took from last Thursday’s Toronto Inline Skating Club practice.


How's this for rain!! The rain was out of control when I took that picture
USARS Update- Results: I received the latest USA Roller Sports update, and in it was some links to results. I might have linked to some of these before, but you’ll be happy that I linked them again if you missed them; SWPSL #5 results, Tampa Classic results, and Fayetteville results.

Inline Planet WIC Blog: It looks New Zealand's world champion like Scott Alridge is running a blog in conjunction with the Inline Planet: World Inline Cup Blog.


Scott Alridge on top of the world at the 2006 world championships in Anyang, Korea. Another good picture by me, hehehe.

Wolvega, Correction, Event News, Links

Wolvega: Click here for the men’s and click here for the women’s photos from the Wolvega Baancompetitie A. The photos are from Harm de Boer Fotografie. You can find a report on Timmerman Powerslide and a report (with some results) on Skate Bond Nederland.


Wolvega- photo from Harm de Boer Fotografie

Wolvega- photo from Harm de Boer Fotografie

Wolvega- photo from Harm de Boer Fotografie

Wolvega- photo from Harm de Boer Fotografie
Correction: Yesterday, I reported that this article talks about a track that is being built in Argentina. Ryczard Adamczyk has left a message indicating that ‘...actually there are three of them in three different cities...’. Pretty cool!

By the way, I like how people can comment on my site. I thought that this might be a good time to mention that I don’t publish all the posts and comments that people make. In fact, I’ve been deleting the millions of comments that women leave for me, telling that I am hot, etc etc. To the millions of ladies; you’re wasting your time; I have a special girl in my life.

Event News: Coming on May 12th in Mount Forest, Ontario is the Trillim Run 10k. Make sure you pre-register for this one. In case you missed it, all the information on the RSO & Canadian Pan American Championships is posted on the Roller Sports Ontario site (info, Pan Am trials entry, and Provincials entry).


A bunch of people at the 2005 Trillium Run 10k
The San Francisco Inline Marathon will be taking place on August 12th. Click here for the French Inline Cup website which features a whole bunch of really good events scattered throughout France.


Links: Your homework for this weekend (other than donating a lot of money to fund Speed Skate World's operations) is to explore these links rich in skating stuff: First off, I’ll direct you to EGC Skates. They are currently building a set of boots and sharing their boot making experiences.


EGC Skates being built- 'After making the initial molds - the cast must be completely dried before moving on to the lastmaking step. If it's not dry - they will stretch when the last's are poured'
I like this next one, and surely many of you will as well: Team Time Out Sport-Reeleezee- it’s an all women’s team as far as I could tell. I am down with that. For sure I am down with that. They should have a whole bunch of these teams here in Mississauga. Maybe you can organize some teams?


I'm sure there's a way for the likes of me to get onto this team... - photo from Team Time Out Sport-Reeleezee
Il Peloton is a good place to visit. Especially due to the fact that they sponsor my website. Also, I like Team Mijnten and their spiderman-esque suits. Check out Timmerman Powerslide. They are putting news and pictures and interviews- this site has the potential of being a good one that you’ll check on a regular basis, even if you’re not able to read the language that it is published in.


Team Mijnten