So last weekend was the European Slalom Championship, hosted by RollerClub.ru in Moscow. What follows is a report of how the "weekend" went along.

The event was on friday and saturday, with speed-slalom and qualifications taking place on friday, and the style finals on friday.

The surface was immensely slippery, possibly because of dust that settled on a painted polished cement floor.

The technical level of the Russian skaters was absolutely amazing. Uncomparable to what I've seen up until now. Both Dmitry Shevarutin and Viktor Meleshkevich pulled off a one toe-special to toe-wiper. Dmitry did butterfly to butterfly switch, to toe-wheeling (huge WTF), as if it meant nothing.
But the biggest surprise of all was probably Martin Sloboda. He has been making a strong impression in the latest competitions, and this seemed to have been the competition for him to shine. Toe-wheelings, backwards and forwards, transitioning into sevens. Then still on his toe-wheel continuing into the next line. All whilst keeping a rather natural arm-position, in heavy contrast with the others, showing utmost control and balance-perfection. Combine this with fluent and stylish freestyling in between the tech-tricks and very clean runs, and what do you get? Undisputed first place at the European Slalom Championship. If the city of Munich doesn't give the slalom-community over there an indoors location to practice now, I don't know what will.

As for the ladies competition, Chloe Seyres took first place, Polina Semenova (now with sevens in her trick-arsenal) got second, Angelika Baby (very talented young lady) had to make due with third place, but still got ahead of Nadezdha Zelenova, who took first place the weekend before at Battle St-Petersburg. A point worth mentioning is that all women are particularly skilled at showing flexibility. I wonder where this trend is heading towards :)

Speed slalom was won by Tiziano Ferrari, who was exceptionally happy with this title. He's been working very hard all year for it and it finally pays off. Andrey Shitov came in second, Igor Cheremetieff third and Kirill "Rekil" Ryazantsev took fourth place. In Women's category Katya Surmach claimed first, Chloe Seyres got second, third place was for Christina Lysenko, and Olya Fadina got fourth.

For full rankings go to The respective World Slalom Series website.

After the competition on saturday, we all went to party in the 1000 miles club. Where they had an awesome nu-jazz band, playing all sorts of covers, water-pipes with apple-mint and melon-flavor, and wodka! I witnessed Rudy Op't Veld (4th place in the competition) with a helmet and speed-goggles on, while seated in a F1-cockpit that was hanging against the wall, having various sorts and amounts of alcohol poured down his throat through a funnel. For a guy that's not used to alcohol, he sure could withstand this hazing pretty well :)

Here are a few other interesting things I learned whilst I was there:

• In Russian letters, the "H" is actually an "N", the reversed "N" is actually an "I", the "P" is actually an "R", the reversed "R" is actually "ya". Also an "O" at the end of a word is actually pronounciated as an "A" "because it's much simpler that way" - end quote Mischa Gurevich.
• Private taxi's: just citizens of Moscow really. You just hail them, and after you tell them where you want to go, you try to lower the fare and hopefully you'll arrive at your desired destination. Exciting!
• There are 15 million people in Moscow alone. Compare this to the give or take 11 million in Belgium
• It's as if all of those 15 million people want to go to the same place at the same time, using their cars. Which makes traffic a living, driving hell
• It can take up to 8 hours to cross Moscow from North to South through busy traffic
• Moscow's Metro fucking rules. It's both beautiful, every station is different from the other, and well organized
• The military students are impressive and are definitely not to be messed with
• You should not touch the barrier at the Kremlin
• It's really bloody cold in Russia
• Most people do not speak English, deal with it
• It's not easy to get a Russian Visa. One should plan this well in advance. (note for purists: I know that, technically, this doesn't count as a list-item, because it happened before I went to Moscow)