Stockholm Tunnelloppet (Tunnel Skate) 2004

Background

The Stockholm tunnel marathon is (or should I say was) a once in a lifetime opportunity to skate the entire length of the South Link, Sweden’s largest road tunnel project which connects two of Sweden’s most heavily trafficked routes; Essingeleden to the west and Värmdöleden to the east. The tunnel will officially open to traffic on the 24 October 2004, the tunnel will be out of bounds to skaters and pedestrians.

Fact: The main tunnel is 6km long. Including ancillary tunnels: 16.6km long. A total of 2,035,00 cu m was excavated to produce the tunnel system and the tunnel uses 3,000 km of electric cabling. An estimated 60,000 vehicles will pass the through the tunnel every single day.

As part of the inauguration programme, ‘Sodermalms IK’ and ‘Hammarby IF friidrott’ organised an Inline Tunnel Race for 17 October 2004. Which gave fellow inline skater’s runners and myself the opportunity to experience all of the South Links tunnels first hand and what an experience we got.

Let's go!

My team decided to get into Stockholm early Saturday morning, a whole day before the race. Our flight from London Stansted to Skavsta Stockholm with Ryan Air was cheap and cheerful, the whole journey went like clockwork. On arrival at Skavsta the rain was pouring down. All I could think about was why oh why did I put new bearings in that morning! The coach to take us to Stockholm was bang on time and the journey into Stockholm was breath taking.

We arrived at our luxurious four star hotel called Kung Carl for about 11.30am. The daily rate was very reasonable. A bedroom to sleep three people worked out at roughly £70 each for two nights that’s about 1400 SEK per room per night. The Hotel far exceeded my expectations.

After we’d settled into our room, unpacked and decided that the rain would prevent us from skating that evening we headed straight for the Globe Arenas to collect our starter pack, chip and race numbers. We queued for almost half an hour in line C, only to be told that inliners were to line up at the other end. The whole experience was frustrating and time consuming. There wasn’t a real cueing system from what I could work out, people just huddled together and shuffled forward every now and then.

The lack of English spoken announcements over the loudspeakers made it difficult for most Brits like myself to understand what was going on. We eventually found an English speaking organiser, who managed to explain everything to us, which was when we discovered that the wearing of helmets during the race was compulsory. Unfortunately two of my team didn’t bring helmets and a mad helmet hunting frenzy pursued. We finished the evening with dinner, a bit of Internet surfing then early to bed for the 6am start.

Sunday Morning

It was still dark outside when we woke up, it was still very wet as well. We had hoped to skate down to the station to meet our only female team member Denyse, but decided against it. By now I was getting a bit concerned because I’d also put new wheels on the day before and hadn’t warn them in yet. Contending with wet surfaces was going to be bad enough but brand new wheels as well!

Freezing cold weather, drizzle and high winds were what greeted us outside the hotel. Was this a sign of things to come? I prayed not. After breakfast at the 7/11 we headed straight to the start point which was on the opposite side of the Globe Arenas. Thankfully the organisers had provided a warm place for us to sit in and get changed.

There weren’t as many skaters as I’d expected to see. Two thousand at the most, I might have been wrong though and maths has never been my strong point anyway! We put our shoes, bags and other belongings into the plastic storage bags provided by the organisers and took them to the baggage warehouse. Then we made our way to the start line.

Note: The inline skate marathon was split into two separate races. A 12km (half marathon) and a 42km, we were taking part in the 42km race. That’s four laps of the tunnel.

Confusion hit us again as we realised that it didn’t matter what start area you were given when you registered, it simply wasn’t going to be that organised. You simply joined the back of the cue and waited for the go signal with everyone else. The ground was very wet and slippery, by now several skaters had slipped and a couple of these people were badly injured. The marshals were already busy pulling skaters off the race as well who didn’t have helmets.

The race starts and heads down a not so smooth path, round a corner and up a small incline, then round another corner down a small slope and left. The race goes like this for about 1km or so. I should mention that throughout the whole of this race I’m filming it, I’ve got in my hand a Sony Mini-DV camcorder and I’m staying at the back of the race to minimise the risk of getting knocked down.

Roughly 1km later we turn right down a large slope and get our first view of the tunnel entrance. Huge screams can be heard echoing out of the tunnel as skaters enter at speed. I gave out a huge YEAH myself, followed by many more screams of excitement. It was totally out of control, the experience was only to get better.

Each main tunnel is about 6km and would have got reasonably dull after a while had it not been for the spectacular light shows and wacky side exhibits throughout. One section of the tunnel was lit up with disco lights while dance music was played in the background, another section had tables and chairs laid out just like a café with bird noises playing softly in the background. My favourite was the formula one section, with chequered start banner and authentic sports car noises playing as you whizzed past which gave you that go faster feeling. Well maybe not!

The tunnel had some awesome downhill sections, which gave others and myself the opportunity to let rip. It wasn’t all downhill though, the tunnels had a few slight inclines and one particularly soul-destroying hill which took you out of the second tunnel and up to street level, which was in my opinion the most difficult section of all.

I recall being lapped twice during the race by at least three speed skating teams and numerous other elite skater individuals. These people where fast, doing speeds that I for one wouldn’t feel safe doing. I’m what you would call a Street Skater. The London roads are my playground and where I feel most at home. You could say that my skate style combines a mixture of speed skating, a dash of aggressive and whole dollop of recreational. In short, I skate purely for fun!

The marathon wouldn’t have been complete without an accident or two. Even at the very start of the race casualties were being taken away, mostly due to the wet and slippery road surfaces. I myself had a nasty fall due to the rain, or at least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Coming out of the first tunnel on the third lap, I came round the corner to start my approach on the second tunnel and the ground gave way below me. Now at this time my priority was to keep my camera safe. Unfortunately with no hands free to buffer my fall I went tumbling across the ground like a barrel. My knee is currently cut and still very swollen, my back is bruised, my elbow aches and my helmet doesn’t look too healthy either. Note to self: Knee pads, Elbow pads and Wrist guards for the next marathon!

The last lap was starting to get very difficult indeed. Had I known how physically demanding the whole thing was going to be I’d have at least done some pre-marathon training and so would my team. We were all starting to hit that brick wall near the end and it suddenly didn’t seem like such a great idea anymore. With less than 2km to go we pushed each other on, trying to motivate someone else while keeping yourself motivated isn’t an easy task.

At the finish line we were met with claps and shouts of encouragement. My head was pounding, the sweat was stinging my eyes and my knee was throbbing, but the cheers from the crowd took most of that pain away and made me feel glad that I’d pushed myself that extra distance.

Lots of entertainment had been planned that evening but I was far to tired and needed to get back to the hotel for a shower and some rest. After getting my knee butterfly stitched and taking the gory photo evidence (complete with some video!!) we all headed back to the hotel. Not without the obligatory pizza and a beer first though!

Video

You can view the video I made of the race here:

Normal (25MB):

http://www.londonskaters.com/video/stockholm-tunnelloppet.wmv

and a small version (7MB)

http://www.londonskaters.com/video/stockholm-tunnelloppet-small.wmv

Congratulations to everyone who took part and a huge thank you to the organisers for making it all possible.

Lee Marshall aka Extremelee

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