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ISPO Beijing Freestyle Competition

Part 2

by Naomi Grigg, March 2007

The Europeans and Koreans were sat at the same table, which was great as I got to hang out with the girls that I’d met that day, and meet a couple more of the guys that hadn’t been there for the first couple of days. At 9pm, it was time to stop dancing like a complete idiot on the stage with the locals, and attend the first World Slalom Skating Association (WSSA) meeting, which ASSA had been dissolved to make way for.

Now, I won’t bore you with the meeting (I’m doing a dedicated, and far more boring write up – please do read it when it surfaces or ask me for a copy). However I do have to mention the massive number of cans of Nescafe coffee that were being consumed, and also the rather comical language situation, where if a Chinese was speaking, he would stop every couple of sentences, and someone would translate into Korean, whilst a Singaporean would translate into English for us lot, before the Chinese would continue with his next few sentences. The first time it happened I started to then translate it into French for a laugh, but I think I was the only one sniggering like a small child… too much beer & coffee.

Photo courtesy of http://bbs.66club.com.cn/

After the meeting I couldn’t sleep for hours – it was my first time having cold coffee from a can, and it was delicious! So I’d sank four cans of it, despite Greg shaking his head advisedly each time I cracked open a fresh one.

The final day was really exciting. I actually stopped playing and wildly gesticulating with the other skaters every so often to watch the competitions (and of course briefly to put on my skates & go and embarrass myself for a minute & a half). And for the final 5 or 6 I was glued, entranced (the order of the competitors was in reverse order of the qualification marks from the previous day).

After the competitions were over, there was a rather surprising ‘team battle demo’ which we, the Euros, were told to form a team for, whilst not actually having any idea what it was. Turns out that team battles are possibly the best fun ever to be had whilst doing slalom. I REALLY hope there is a video out there somewhere which gets published on a website. If you get to see a vid of it, you’ll see me in a constant state of delight for a good 10 or 15 minutes whilst participating then watching.

Imagine two teams, constantly posturing & showing attitude to the other team, whilst taking it in turns to play freestyle in the cones, and doing their best to look unimpressed with the opposing teams’ offerings. I can’t remember how it actually turned out like that, as apparently it hadn’t been intended to be like that at all – all I remember, is that I entered the cones, as the first person in the entire show, definitely under the impression that I was supposed to give lots of attitude and insult the opposition… and then everyone else joined in. so… um… sorry about that! Well, not really, because it rocked.

Naturally I ended up living through the consequences of my actions, when one of the good Korean skaters (who had been judging the ASSA comp, so fortunately not warmed up) challenged me to a one on one battle. Damnit. That’s the last time I give someone a hard time for not joining in. I seem to remember resorting to slapping my arse whilst doing the sweep backwards towards him at one point, in a kind of ‘kiss my arse’ kind of way. Desperate times…

After the prize giving, it was time for a quick shower & change before going out to a club with the Koreans in advance of their 6am flight back home. Imagine 10-15 skaters, in shoes, on a dancefloor, doing what I can only describe as Hip Hop line dancing, with the above mentioned Korean leading us through moves that any idiot could manage. Except me. I had to keep stopping & trying to get the beat again.

This was of course followed by a team dance battle, which could be best described as ‘carnage’, and if my memory serves me correctly, no one retained any dignity. Actually, when I say ‘no one retained any dignity’, that would be wrong, because I definitely achieved new levels of embarrassingly bad dancing when I had a repeat of our earlier one on one battle. What was I thinking? It’s what he does for crying out loud.

Photo courtesy of http://bbs.66club.com.cn/

So, the day after everything, the French and I were taken to the Great Wall (no handrails! I may have seen my life flash before my eyes a couple of times in my determination not to hold onto the sides at any point, but still! No handrails!), and then to a university. It would seem that the expressions ‘The most important thing is that we go to the Forbidden City’ and ‘The most important thing is that we go to a University’ are interchangeable when said with a French accent, and listened to by a Chinese guide.

Most of the next day was spent in bed, after a morning demo to hundreds of autograph hungry kids at a school (they actually fought. Actual scrumming. My ego will take months to deflate again. Perhaps not until my next competition, when it will go with a pop), with the internet cable being handed back & forth as we did a kind of sleep/internet relay throughout the afternoon, evening & night.

We’re about to land now, so just before I switch off, I just want to add that last night I believe I was eating the stomach of a pig. I was quite enjoying it before I realized what it was.

Back to part 1

Back to summary of Naomi's articles

Naomi's website: http://www.skatefreestyle.com/

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