UK Freestyle Skaters Association

The weekend of 10th-11th of November was a big one for British freestyle skating. Pro level competitors from the UK, USA, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Singapore, Malaysia, Korea and many more congregated in Nottingham to battle it out for the highly coveted BattleUK title. A wonderful crowd of supporters also turned up to route for their favourite skaters, resulting in an electric atmosphere.

Igor Cheremetieff finished ahead of Rudy Op't Veld and third place Olivier Herrero in the men's international style slalom.

Chloe Seyres beat all comers to win the women's international style slalom title ahead of Naomi Grigg and Ragnhild Cornelisse.

UK competitors fought it out in their own UK style slalom competition with Jon Bell taking home all the glory ahead of Max Freeman and third place Naomi Grigg.

In other results, JB Milleret finished first place in the speed slalom with some astounding sub five second runs. Sebastien Laffargue won the free jump competition, Kim Taehong won the slides contest and John Kirkham was the freestyle dance champion.

The UKFSA would like to thank all those who travelled so far to compete, the audience for lending their support and above all the stewards and other staff who worked behind the scenes all day to make this event happen. We look forward to seeing you all back next year!

You can find some interesting photos here and the full results are available here. You can find some personal videos (thankyou to Carmen and James for making these) here and here. High definition videos of many of the performances are due to be released shortly so check back later to see them.

In October 2006, the NottinghamSkaters, a club of local inline and roller skaters, held BattleUK; the UK’s first “battle rules” freestyle slalom competition. The event was an astounding success, with skaters coming from across the UK and Europe to compete. So much so, that BattleUK is now not only established as the main international freestyle skating event in the UK and showcase event for the UK Freestyle Skating Association, but one of the World’s best freestyle skating competitions.

BattleUK II: Attack of the Cones will take place at the Victoria Leisure Centre in Nottingham on Saturday 10th November 2007. Teams of skaters from all over the UK, Korea, the USA, Germany, Belgium, Holland, France, Singapore and Korea have already registered for the event. A full press release can be downloaded here.

The World Slalom Skaters Association (WSSA) has just released the World Rankings for September. Naomi Grigg lost just one place and is now 17th in the World. Many other Team UK members were out of the running while busy training for BattleUKII. We expect big things from you guys! The full ranking is available here

BattleUS, America's first freestyle skating contest, took place in New York City between the 8th-9th of September.

Team UK member Naomi Grigg judged at this event alongside world famous freestyle skater Sebastien Laffargue. Team UK members Phil Downer and James Mycock competed in a number of events.

BattleUS was distinctive in that it was the first competition ever to feature an off-cones freestyle battle. By all accounts this was a very enjoyable event and Team UK will be back for more next year!

The Jeonjy City freestyle contest took place between the 8th-9th of September. Pro level skaters from all over asia and several europeans took part.

Team UK member Max Freeman represented the UK. Nice one Max!

The World Slalom Skaters Association (WSSA) has just released the World Rankings for July, the rankings have several uk skaters listed and includes our very own Naomi Grigg in the top 20 for Womens Freestyle and Speed slalom and Philip Downer in the top 50 for the mens. The full ranking is available here

The 2007 Inline Games took place in Hannover between the 20th-22nd of July. Pro level skaters from all over the globe took part.

Team UK member Phil Downer took 4th place in an extremly close final. Congrats Phil!

Photo (left to right):

1st Mischa Gurevich (Ger), 2nd Rudy Op´t Veld (Ger), 3rd Xuan Le (Fr), 4th Phil Downer (UK), 5th Thomas Vilcans (Ger)

The British Roller Sports Federation (BRSF), the national governing body for roller sports, has finally accepted our request for membership. This means that freestyle skating is now acknowledged alongside roller hockey, artistic skating and speed skating.

In the coming months we will be applying for funding and participating in many projects to further promote freestyle skating in the United Kingdom.

The 2007 Shanghai Open took place on the weekend of the 11th-12th of August. This was a world class event with numerous competitors attending from all over the globe.

Team UK members Naomi Grigg and Cheryl Evans represented the UK well, while competing against many of the best freestyle skaters in the world. Pillow fights are also reported to have taken place!

Eastbourne Extreme took place on the weekend of 14th and 15th of July. This was an amateur level event, with demos from pro competitors only.

We had almost 40 competitors take part in our amateur competition. Competitors ranged from the ages of 6 to 22, and female competitors competed alongside their male counterparts. The pro level skaters gave workshops between each round of competition. Freejump and slide contests also took place, as well as numerous fun events.

Thank you to all the organisers in Eastbourne who made this wonderful event happen!