West Coast Contest 5: Promise kept

In the face of all opposition

Even the incessant rain didn’t shake the determination of all the actors of the contest to make it better and better. Review of a weekend full of surprises…

Girls session: The event before the event

One of the novelties of that new opus was announced for May 1st. It was a session gathering the best female riders of France and all the girls who felt like joining in. Since the sun was on strike on May 1st, the Darwin Skatepark saved the day last minute in hosting the session initially planned at the Chartrons Skatepark. What a session! All the skaters who had come for the competition of the next day spread the word and joined the girls along the day, so that the skatepark ended up crowded with over 120 riders!! The girls had to concentrate on the mini ramp while the others were warming up on the other modules of the park. The maxi ramp, the bowl, the local kitchen or the sliding modules, moved from place to place along the session… Each of them was the scenes of promising technical feats for the upcoming competition.

Rainy day, the partners save the party!

The day started well. At 6AM the volunteers of Bordeaux Rollerblading Association were busy setting up the stands and the 2 modules specially created for the occasion. At 8AM the representatives of Qualiconsult were on the spot to check and validate the conformity of the modules… An inspection agency that comes and performs conformity testing on modules built for an event… It was original enough for us to ask for more explanation. We were told that without the paper, the city hall had threatened to prohibit the event!

But at 8:30AM intermittent rain started crashing the party. At 10AM the first riders made the most of a sunny spell to warm up, one of them ended up with the firefighters, his tooth in his lip, as a result of an unfortunate encounter with a puddle of water!

Then the rain started falling harder and Darwin saved the session once more. And again, what a session!! The BRA Team had dismantled the Wood Box they had set up in the morning to reassemble it in the Hangar. The riders had also access to the mini ramp that was taken by the girls on the previous day. A new skating day unfolded in the same skatepark, with many more possibilities!

According to the images gathered on the social networks, everybody didn’t experience the same evening: The girls enjoyed the restaurant of the former barracks while the local skaters welcomed in their own ways the skaters they were respectively hosting. As for the organizers, they got together for a drink at the pub facing the skatepark, after having reassembled the Wood Box for the 3rd time of the day!!

The sun is back

On the Sunday, the 80 survivors to those two days of crazy skating of all kinds finally took part in the competition for which they had made the trip. The others were getting massages on the osteopath stand. They have offered free service to the skaters every year since the WCC1.

But in order to squeeze two days into one, the judges had to adapt the format of the competition, including the number of qualified riders. No more semi-finals, after the qualifications you went directly through to the finals! So that as soon as the qualifications, the competitors had understood too well that there would be but a few chosen ones and their commitment was proportional! The public assembled around the skatepark witnessed a dazzling show.

Too many things were done to sum them up in a few lines, photos and videos will be far more explicit than a list of tricks. The overall level of the amateur categories keeps on increasing, but the pro finals outshone it all. Starting with the girls, who went for one another, flinging committed rotations that some of them succeeded for the first time in competition that day (Amandine Condroyer’s brainless and Jenciane Daries’ misty)! On rails, Stéphanie Richer imposed herself against Manon Derrien, the local skater of the competition, her True Kind grind would have carried weight in the Men’s and took a toll on her opponents’ trick lists.

The 15 min of men’s finals were the only thing that woke up the public of Bordeaux, mainly made of passers by, walking along the docks of the Garonne and sometimes stopping, astounded by the show. There were 4 men and 4 obvious characteristics, even if they all have a wide range of skills at that level:
• Roman Abrate was the leader, and that day, he was mostly characterized by his commitment.
• Nicolas Servy was the challenger of the finals, he was pure technique.
• Fred Bukowski was the most creative.
• As for Alexis Bernado, the only local skaters to make it, he distinguished himself with his style.

During the finals, Fred Bukowski hung on until the end to fight for his place, and Alexis was the first one to crack under the pace imposed by his opponents, without showing himself unworthy for all that. As soon as the beginning, the fight between Roman and Nicolas was just as obvious as their respective strategies…

The fight

At the first failure of Roman on the double flat bank, Nicolas made sure to place a couple of technical tricks on it, each time succeeding at first try. From then on, the two opponents rarely met. Roman was going for the best trick that would make him win, even if he had to go for several attempts, and Nicolas was going for more and more technical tricks on each possible spot of the park. In the end, the technical quantity being the main criterion, Nicolas created a sensation in imposing himself in front of Roman and his experience.

Still, the latter rewrote the history of the contest in doing the exact same transfer that gave the victory to Alex Francon during the 2nd edition (540 from the volcano to the quarter pipe of the funbox), and in repeating his own feat of that same year, transferring from the quarter pipe of the wall to grind the quarter pipe, 3 meters further and 1 meter higher, even upgrading it from back royal (back then) to back savannah 180 off (this year)! He also managed flatspin to back UFO — for want of managing back royal, on the transfer of the quarter pipe to the extension of the flat bank. I’m voluntarily skipping the rail since both mastered it on equal levels.

As for Nicolas’ performance, I will probably forget a couple of tricks, but his 540 true fish on the Wood Box was the cherry on top after a never-ending list of tricks. Only his attempts at rotation to grind up the wall got the better of his infaillible series.

The award ceremony closed the day at 8PM, and despite the lack of revenues of the Saturday, the organizers kept their promise and distributed the registration receipts in its entirety to reward the pro categories. They even complement the amount to reach a total prize money of 1000€ this year! At 8:30PM the rain was back and the Calou box and Wood box took their leave, to rest until the next edition! The date is set for the first weekend of May 2016!