LondonSkaters Speed Team - Speed Skating & Rollerblading Club in London

Natasha · Joined: 09 Jul 2004 Posts: 2973 Location: Basingstoke

Good luck Hans, Gav and Belotti Dave. I'll be thinking of you all on Sunday (Farhana will give us a full report next week, I'm sure).

Xia · Joined: 06 Apr 2004 Posts: 874 Location: Geneva (Suisse)

yeah good luck guys, show those pesky French how skating is done!

JonRBUK · Joined: 26 Jun 2004 Posts: 47 Location: Essex, England

WOOOOOOOOOO!

Good Luck!

pity I cant be there to beat ya gav.....oh well....another time! Razz

Gav · Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2005 10:59 pm Subject:

Farhana · Joined: 20 Sep 2004 Posts: 259 Location: Surrey

Oh wow, what can I say, just watching the race was an experience. It was such an eye opener. Skaters of all age groups were there and it was such a nail biting event. Gav and Hans did us Proud yet again. They were fantastic. Very Happy

Got some photos and some video footage, which no doubt will appear here soon enough.

Well done Guys !!!

JonRBUK · Joined: 26 Jun 2004 Posts: 47 Location: Essex, England

Hey!

Cant wait for the Pics/vids......has anyone got the results?

Gav · Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2005 11:44 am Subject:

Don't have full results yet, hopefully we'll be able to get them or they'll be online.

Hans and I did a 10km on Sat. PM, 5km on Sun. AM and a 10km Sun PM. We were both in the Senior Nationales category (about 20 skaters), and there was also an Seniors Elite (about 6 guys, e.g. Bont team).

Accummulated points over all 3 races I think I placed about 7/8 out of the Nationales, and Hans came in about 10/11/12. He did absolutely brilliantly, consistently finishing about 2 spots behind me!

Managed to keep up most times, altho the 1st 2 races I found the corners really tough, and kept on losing distance on the guys in front of me. They were really, really tight corners - the track was 2 long straights with a U-turn at each end about 10m wide!

I was very happy with my results, especially the last race when I came about 6th, and felt much more comfortable with the corners and the breaks that were going on. Only not knowing that we were on the final lap kept me from an even better finishing position.

Pics will hopefully be up sometime soon Smile

It must be said, that all kitted out as Team Belotti UK... dammmmmn did we look good Wink

Hans · Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2005 8:19 pm Subject:

What can I say I have seen the light and in-line track racing on the continent is the new gladiatorial combat event fit to grace any Olympics, come on 2012. The weekend was magic and all of Team Belotti (Dave, Gav and I) did really well, Dave and Gav were outstanding, Dave coming in 6th and 8th in both his races, Gav coming in 9th in two races in the national men class and I think 7th in the last race. I think I did reasonably well, given it was my first time and I was pleased I achieved all my goals for the weekend, which were:

Two races before our first race, “The Gav” and I “mistakenly” lined up with the juniors (they were massive, only one was smaller than me!!) and started the race. We had gone about 14 laps into some really fast and furious racing before we were pulled off and told we were in wrong race, it was so humiliating, all the officials were politely smiling (in reality they were laughing at us!!! Embarassed

). We then had about half an hour of recovery before we lined up with the elite and National men for our race. By this time we were too tired to be embarrassed (we were the butt of many “junior” jokes all weekend).

For the first race I came in 12 out of 18 and lapped two people (yeah Frenchies kiss my big black English left one...... sorry LSST Frenchies Wink

) and Gav came in at 9th about 5m ahead of me. I got nicked on the line by one guy and could have been 11th if I knew how to hawk properly.

During the "short" race on Sunday morning same thing happened again and I got pipped on the line by a fantastic hawk for the line (I am practising these before next year), I was getting really pissed about this at this point. By our last race in the afternoon Gav and I were both really pumped up and boy did we race. There were team tactics (Gav let me into the pace line twice with timed sprints), breaks, lulls, attacks and a lot of pushing and shoving, it was fantastic. By the end of the race I was ready to die.... but I pipped the guy who had been my nemesis on the last two races with a burst of speed in the last 10m and I finished two places behind Gav who was in 7th or 8th, making me 9th or 10th. It felt so righteous, words fail me!!! For all our races, Gav and I raced with the National men and the Elite men (who were mighty beyond words).

Belotti Dave a.k.a (International Dave) raced in two of the veterans races and was our “team manager” for the trip. He can in eighth and 6th out of a field of about 25. Dave earns the distinction of craftily pushing someone out of the way on a bend. The guy he pushed went head first into the straw bales at the corner. It was like panto!! It was skate comedy at its veteran best.

Farhana was magnificent and took a load of photos and film of the various races and is now hoarse from shouting encouragement from the sidelines. When it got too hard, very often it was, all we heard from the sidelines was the cry of "Come on Gav", "Come on Hans", “Go Dave” what a team!!!!
Photos are being posted into the gallery later on tonight.

Christophe · Joined: 26 Feb 2004 Posts: 1650

Ray · Joined: 30 Mar 2004 Posts: 806 Location: Dagenham

Brilliant Guys - sounds a fantastic weekend - If you get any better we'll let you race in LSST Colours Wink

Rick · Joined: 25 Feb 2004 Posts: 5913

Nice one guys. I would like to have seen some of the racing.

Hans · Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2005 9:43 pm Subject:

Going to create some movie files when i get my camera back from my bro... watch this space...

Farhana · Joined: 20 Sep 2004 Posts: 259 Location: Surrey

Photos are up.

merten · Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2005 9:26 am Subject:

Nice pics, looks like you had loads of fun there...

Farhana · Joined: 20 Sep 2004 Posts: 259 Location: Surrey

It was fantastic weekend. You just had to be there to feel the adrenalin in the air. Every race had drama, tears and fierce competitiveness. I just respect these guys for taking part and doing so great.