Live National TV Interview & Pan Am Games Preparation, USA Indoor, EKJ Wrap Up, Reports & More (Napa, France, Staphorst, Zug), 24hr Mans Solo Video

Live National TV Interview & Pan Am Games Preparation: Sarah Hopkins and I will be interviewed on the CBC Newsworld- live Canadian national television- tomorrow. The interview is supposed to take place at 12:30pm, so set your VCR's. Click here for more.

With tomorrow's plans including the interview and then leaving for the Pan American Games- flight at 6:30pm- I've got just a few things to do including jam my wheels into my suitcase, clean all my bearings, and relax and enjoy home made bread & a;; fruit & ice smoothies, and make sure my cats don't fight.

For the last week, I've been going to physiotherapy for my shoulder and leg. The physio includes all sorts of stuff like stretching, massage, electric things being connected to my shoulder, ice, ultra sound, and suction cup devices.


My leg with the suction cups- draining all sorts of fluid from the hematoma in my leg
I just wanted to take a few lines of text on SSW and once again thank everyone for the logistical, moral, finacial, emotional, and spiritual support in getting me to the Pan American Games and to the world championships. It's been a long road with downs and ups, and I expect the road to continue well beyond the games and championships.

Some of the people who have been instrumental in the last few months include Mike Murray (the coach ultimate), Wayne Burrett (the RSC president ultimate who is currently in the Athlete's village in Brazil- he reported back that inline skaters are now banned from skating on the roads in the village), the people at TISC for their (forced) participating in the 50/50's & donations, Il Peloton for getting the wheels in for the team and kicking in some money into the order to help us), Adam's Inline for getting my wheel & bearing shipment in on time, and of course you, the SSW readers.

Word on the track for Pan Ams is that nobody knows what wheels work on the track since nobody has skated on it. Everyone is asking everyone about wheels. I heard that someone from Mexico asked someone from Colombia who asked someone else and it somehow got back to me. I guess we'll find out once we get to Pan Ams. Thankfully we've got three days to practice on the track before we race.

USA Indoor: Let's start today's plethora of links with the USA Indoor Nationals. I was on the phone earlier with Alex Perrie and he was sounding all excited about the online live video that's being run from the championships. The quality of the coverage is really astounding. There's some talk about the coverage and the indoor nationals DVD that's for sale.

You can continue to look for all the results from the USA indoor nationals here. Linda Wood posted some more reports- see Opening Ceremonies & Sprint Night.


USA World/ Pan Am Team- linked from World Championship Blog
EKJ Wrap Up: This is probably the final entry covering the European junior championships. There's a ton of stuff for you to explore- let's get you started with the EKJ official website and work our way over to other sites- SkatePodium's day 6 report, SkatePodium's marathon report, Roller En Ligne's day 6 report, Roller En Ligne's marathon report, all of MundoPatin's EKJ photos, ERSG's coverage with lots of pics and (non-english) commentary, marathon photos from SkatePodium, day 6 photos from SkatePodium, Skating Sisters photos, SS day 1, SS day 2, SS day 3, SS day 4, SS day 5, SS day 6, SS marathon, and finally HDBF's marathon photos.


Euro Jr champs marathon- photo from Roller En Ligne

Euro Jr champs marathon- photo from MundoPatin

Euro Jr champs marathon- photo from Skating Sisters

Euro Jr champs marathon- photo from Harm de Boer Fotografie

Euro Jr champs marathon- photo from Harm de Boer Fotografie
Reports & More (Napa, France, Staphorst WOW): Let's start with something North American right now- you can check out the results from the Napa Valley Inline Marathon and Half Marathon. Note that Andrew Love finshed 4th- and you can ready his always-good report The Wrath of Grapes. The pictures you're looking for can be found here thanks to the Inline Planet and by Darlene Prois. You can read a good report on the Inline Planet. The Planet forum is also the site of a nice post called Positive Attitudes.


Andrew Love leads the way at Napa- photo by Darlene Prois and posted on the Inline Planet
Next up on the cutting board is the French track championships. I'll send you right to a set of pictures- check 'em out; they're nice. When you come back from looking at the pictures, you can check out Roller En Ligne's coverage, including reports on day 2 and day 3. You can scour through the saturday results and sunday results.


France track championships- photo from Pibrac Roller.
On to the Staphorst WOW- click here to find the results (at the bottom)/ report. You can read/ examine a report on SkatePodium. Cado Motus has also posted a report- this one in english. Harm de Boer Fotografie has a lot of superb pictures as usual- women, men (B), and men (A).


Staphorst WOW men A- photo from Harm de Boer Fotografie

Staphorst WOW men A- photo from Harm de Boer Fotografie

Staphorst WOW men B- photo from Harm de Boer Fotografie

Staphorst WOW women- photo from Harm de Boer Fotografie
Zug- there's not a lot that I haven't linekd to, except for this post which has a photo of the men's finish and Bill Begg talks a little bit about Aaron Arndt.


Zug WIC men's finish- photo posted on PatinCarrera
24hr Mans Solo Video: This video of the 4th place finsher Sylvain Niay at the 24 Hours Mans is awesome- it's got all sorts of footage that makes us all want to skate the 24 hour solo...NOT!- click here to view or press play below-