I've Finally Made it to Bordeaux

Last night I arrived in Paris after a 12 hour flight from Hong Kong. I stayed the night in Paris and caught a train this morning to Bordeaux. The train journey was supposed to take around 3 1/2 hours but ended up turning into a long 6 hour journey. All was fine until about 30 minutes out from Bordeaux when the train suddenly came to a stop in the middle of nowhere due to an electrical malfunction. All the announcements where being made in French and no one seemed to be able to speak enough English to tell me what was going on. An hour and a half later everyone started moving towards the front of the train so I just followed along like a sheep. We then all had to walk about 1km along the track to the next little railway station. It's ok having a 30 kg bag when you can drag it along behind you on wheels but that doesn't work going over loose stones. About 30 minutes later a train came to pick up all the stranded passengers and I finally made it to Bordeaux.

I am staying at Le Creps Aquitaine in Bordeaux which is the Ministry of Youth and Sports Institution. There are great sporting facilities at this complex including a road circuit, indoor 100 meter flat track and gym facilities. There is also a bank track about 20 to 30 minutes away. Quiet a few of the French National Team skaters are based here and I will be training with them for the next month.

Tomorrow morning I am going with the group of skaters from Bordeaux to a race meet in France. I'm not sure where it is but it's about 3 hours away. I'm rather tired from the travel, lugging my bags around, lack of sleep and delays but hopefully after a good nights sleep I will feel more energized tomorrow when I step on the start line.

I Have Landed

On Saturday night I left New Zealand and flew out to Hong Kong. After a 10 hour flight I arrived in Hong Kong at around 6am. That afternoon I had a training clinic with the local skating club Checker Sports with around 40 skaters attending. Straight after the clinic Cheryl and I headed to the airport and took a short flight across to Kaohsiung, Taipei the city where the World Games are being held in July of this year. I skated early this morning with the Kaohsiung City Team and will train again with them tonight. Tomorrow morning I will get another training session in before flying back out to Hong Kong at midday. I leave Hong Kong on the 26th and fly to France where I will be training for the next month.

WIC Cartagena

The first World Inline Cup race for 2009 took place in Cartagena, Colombia a couple of days ago. Alexandra Vivas, Tamara Llorens and new team member Kelly Martinez where there representing the Bont Wheels Team.

From what I can understand the marathon took place under hot conditions exceeding 32 degrees. Kelly Martinez was the highest place finisher for the team coming in 5th, Tamara Llorens 7th and Alexandra Vivas 8th after making a couple of breakaway attempts.

How cool is this?

Last week Cheryl and Bill were in Singapore for the first Asian Inline Cup Race and they came across a very cool McDonald's restaurant.

I am sure you are all aware of McDonald's and the drive thru area that usually goes with it. Well at East Coast (Singapore) where there is 20km of skate and cycle paths there is a McDonald's that has a Skate-Thru area as well. Here are the pictures to prove it.

NZ Bank Track National Results

The full results form the New Zealand Bank Track National Championships can be downloaded from the Skate NZ website. They can be found under the menu Speed-Results-National.

I won all of the Senior Ladies and Open Ladies titles, so that is 6 national titles in total. I didn't break any National records but only one or two where broken all weekend. It was great to see the strength and up and coming talent in the female grades. The Juvenile and Junior Girls grades are really strong at the moment with large numbers.


More pictures from the weekend can be found on the South Canterbury Club's blog.

NZ Bank Track Champs

The New Zealand Bank Track Championships are being held this weekend in Christchurch. The champs run over two days with the 300m time trial being the first event up starting at 9.10 on Saturday morning. The weather isn't looking good, the forecast is for rain on both days of racing.

The Christchurch bank track is a 166.6 meter concrete, parabolic track. It's not considered to be a fast track, so it will be interesting to see if any records fall.

The South Canterbury Club will have 10 skaters competing on the weekend. Check out the club's blog site for more information on the skaters. www.southcanterburyskateclub.blogspot.com

The program is available to download from the Skate NZ website under speed downloads.

Tonight while surfing the web I came across an article and video clip from the Celebrity Sporting Function which I attended in October. Click here to view the video.

Halburg Trust Gets Visit From New Zealand's Fastest

October 22, 2008 - 6:22pm

Two of New Zealand's fastest women on wheels came to Dunedin for a frank and entertaining lunch today.

World motocross champion Katherine Prumm and world In line speed skating champion Nicole Begg treated a packed Glenroy auditorium for a Q and A for the Halburg Trust.

The two spoke on crashes, injuries, keeping up with the boys and their intense training schedules, which sees Nicole skating a marathon a week.

Funds raised from the celebrity lunch will help the Halburg trust bring sport and active leisure to kids around the region with disabilities.