Reverse Cycle needed urgently in Speed Skating.

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williambegg	Reverse Cycle needed urgently in Speed Skating.	Lead	[-]
Posts: 1239 (07/03/09 12:14:59) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Hi Skaters, Its a case of Bring your Family, Bring your friends, Bring your School mates, you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time, OH for Data sport, all the skating lovers need to react, Famous parties that used to attract numbers, are only a meek imitation.The Top Sport, Sport for All & Party had something for everyone.I have heard that many conflicting stories I done a bit of research myself. One race only. 2006 - 1,586 2007 - 1,588 2008 - 1,200 2009 - 782 But alarming is the young children we seem to have failed in this area of development Juniors 2006 - 87 2007 - 38 2008 - 27 2009 - 17 It appears there are far to many options, with Skykes, Gigatholons & other multi sports, also lack of Enterprise, Enthusiasm.& Passion.from organizors. The great Covered Bank track built at Weinfelden, yes the location & Zurich lock traffic do not help, but my first night back in Switzerland this was the tally, at evening training. 1 - Russian Visitor doing some racing & learning. 1 - Estonian Staying over for a couple more races. 1 - Swiss man I - Venezuelan 1 - Swiss Kiwi.- Emily 1 - Hungarian Kiwi. - Suzi 2 - New Zealanders Nicole & Kalon. 3 - Argentinian's. 1 - French Girl. Travelled 3 hours over & 3 hours back. 1 - Colombian. Simply an underutilized facility. Its simply time everyone stood up & acted, to bring the sport, back to recent bygone days. Bill
Ben1		#1	[-]
Posts: 179 (07/03/09 13:46:52) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	I know i am not breaking any new ground here with this suggestion, but the world cup marathons desperately need a shake up cycling style. that means; 1 king of the hills + jersey 2 prime sprints 3 sprinters classifications + jersey 4 Awards for most aggressive attacking breakaway skater and team etc etc. Realisticially with the 110mm wheels and the big predictable bunch sprint they bring, 99% of the time there are only a handful of guys who can actually win the race (one if our american mate shows up) so what keeps the rest of us motivated to show up week after week and put our bodies on the line on increasingly dangerous courses?? Give us something to strive for, and watch the racing come alive! And how about some advertising for the races? I work in the middle of Zurich just a stones throw from the race course, I saw absolutely no advertising anywhere leading up the biggest swiss race of the year, no one at my work even knew there was a race...hell even I had half forgotten until the barriers were placed around the streets ready to be set up a few days before the race! The only time the general public is aware of a race is when they drive into town and find the streets blocked. Switzerland is full of skaters and fitness enthusiasts, and ours is a very attractive sport to kids, but how can we get them involved when no one even knows a race is on!?! Its time we stopped blowing our trumpets on a message board as i feel we are only preaching to the converted. We need to take this to the top and make our suggestions heard by the organisers of our races, and while we are at it maybe we can get some skaters consulting on the race courses, cos so far this year I have been somewhat disturbed by what passes as a "safe" race course, and after reading Bills post about Zug it hasn't exactly lifted my confidence. So suggestions for better racing please, and suggestions on how we make ourselves heard by the ones that have the power to make the decisions! Last Edited By: Ben1 07/03/09 13:52:56. Edited 2 times.
mrv	Increase of inline skating popularity in Middle/Eastern Europe	#2	[-]
Posts: 5 (07/03/09 14:52:11) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	I've done some research regarding inline events participation in Poland. The same in Czech and Slovakia. Positive trend. I even think that next few years seems to be potential inline explossion. But support from inline stars is needed. For example Diego Rosero an Elizabetz Schrenk started year ago in Poznan 21km race. But since Poznan no other significant competitors. It will be ~500 participants race - August Maraton in Poland with fair prizes. This is just day before XRace in Berlin . There's also relatively easy way to return to Berlin next day. Maybe someone from you wants to support inline sports in Poland by participating ? Some statistics: Gdańsk 2006: 131 2007: 205 2008: 219 2009: ~500 expected (due to new organizers, government support etc) Poznań 2000: 29 2001: 55 2002: 40 2003: 104 2004: 162 2005: 210 2006: 283 2007: 301 2008: 326 Kraków 2006: 84 2007: 129 2008: 198 Zgorzelec 2004: 74 2005: 115 2006: 168 2007: 191 2008: 169 Osiecznica 2008: 144 2009: 270
mrv	Time trials	#3	[-]
Posts: 6 (07/03/09 14:53:58) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Ben also road time trials are worth considering.
rich71		#4	[-]
Posts: 7 (07/03/09 19:12:18) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Your talking about keeping speed skaters interested in racing, how about looking at the grass roots- there is nothing. Thats is what Bill is talking about. Here in the lonely Sydney NSW we are using the cycling scene to showcase our sport. Spectators love our sport but most of the time it too difficult to learn for those that are curious. Here is how i see us getting young kids involved. 1) School sport - get skating clinics going in school sport though suitable venues. Some states in Australia have been successful with this eg WA 2) Social Skates - get people indoors were its safe to learn, rinks are necessary or courts. Especially in the School holidays advertise at school for holiday skate lessons. 3) Sponsors support - WE NEED people like Bont, RBC, to bring top class skaters to skate events, have clinics and skate gear for people to look at, touch, and ask questions. 4) Local paper/media advertising - have weekly roundup of the skating scene, results and pictures. Most papers offer this for free in the sport section. There is many old school skating parents which are keen but dont know where to start. Most kids don't have the passion to race so it is important not to scare them off by putting pressure on them. Teach them speed skills and in the end its a numbers game, get 100 skaters and 10 might want to race. Adults however start with goals of improving fitness and u don't want to blow them off with speed training.
andresisthename		#5	[-]
Posts: 19 (07/04/09 21:44:07) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	I'm going to second what rich71 said, in fact I agreed with him by the word, You need to understand that many of us who want to start the sport are facing the fact the sport seems to be only known by people on the forums but not much by your every day average Joes, which are the people we hang out with (Have any Michael Phelps for a friend?) If you want to start playing Basketball you won't need to go too far to find how to, where to, with who to, and when to, not such of thing with Inline Speed Skating, they say it is because it's a young sport but I don't think it's that young. Something is very wrong here, awful wrong, sponsors don't seen to be ready, pros don't seen to be delivering it, and the sport doesn't seems to be taken to the wide audiences, Inline Speed Skating seems to be the kind of stuff you come across after some serious online searches, when it should be a standard. The early 21st century should have had a couple of countries declaring it their national sport, it hasn't happened, and the worse is that the actual growing seems to be more directly linked to the global population growth rather than a sport's booming. We need a new strategy, in terms of marketing, marketing a sport, through events, educational insight of it, no more secrets! And most of all inspire our kids or else the future of this most excellent sport might be dim at best. In my area alone I think I might be the only skater, I live in one of the largest cities in the east coast USA, where there is 4 million people. Of course I'm not the only skater but I haven't seen any other and people ask me what is your sport? They think I'm going to say Soccer or Baseball, or maybe Cyclist? When I answer Inline Speed Skating they look at me like if I just made that up. How are we going to have a successful sport if people aren't even aware of it? It's our fault guys, simply our fault but we could certainly use a little help to take the sport further by having the pros participating more in social events designed to attract people to the sport not just the races.
crazydotcom		#6	[-]
Posts: 3 (07/05/09 03:20:25) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Untill people stop using things like WHAT CAN WE DO and WE NEED PEOPLE LIKE and start using things like WHAT CAN I DO. Nothing will ever change in the sport.
andresisthename		#7	[-]
Posts: 20 (07/05/09 14:22:12) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	So Crazydotcom tell me what can I do? And don't tell me to put a bell in the cat's neck, tell me how to get it done.
Ben1		#8	[-]
Posts: 180 (07/06/09 00:42:50) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Hi all, yes i agree that my ideas were somewhat biased towards the top level racing, but thats where my focus is. Grass roots development is definitely needed, but for kids to want to get involved with a sport then they need role models to look up to, which means high profile professionals competing in exciting races. How many kids would get into footy without the AFL, tennis without Federer and Nadal etc etc?? Its a case of which came first, the chicken or the egg, but since we already have the successful concept and base for the pro races we can begin there, (with a few long overdue tweaks of course) then with the product to sell (i hate referring to sport as a product but unfortunately thats how it is) we can use that to get kids involved. I am more than happy to take my suggestions to the decision makers, if only they weren't so damn anonymous at the races...besides my first concern is to survive the paris-roubaix style race in zug this weekend.
rich71		#9	[-]
Posts: 8 (07/06/09 02:24:45) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Hey Ben1, I like your idea also at top level racing.
DaGr8Purilate		#10	[-]
Posts: 1 (07/06/09 06:59:43) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	I have always felt that the USARS does not do enough for inline skating in the United States. With strong indoor participation one would assume that this would trickle over to all aspects of the sport. In fact, it does not. For some time USARS has continued to gouge its members with high fees for National Championships and has given almost nothing in the way of marketing or direction for the sport of inline speed skating, or roller skating as a whole. We are in desperate need of a true indoor race series instead of individual invitationals which are not connected in any way. If USARS continues to operate in this manner the United States will continue its slide on the world stage. If they could formulate a true race series where the professional aspect of our sport was highlighted they could brand and market this exiting, face paced, spectator style of racing to big business and Television alike. In turn creating more awareness by the general population. The fact that they have also sold its top inline racers to US Speed Skating has also created a void of talent at the top level of American Racing. Numerous Ex-Professional inline skaters have completely given up their wheels for blades. I am not knocking these athletes for chasing their Olympic dreams, but this exodus has been a detriment to our sport over the last several years. I agree that it starts from the bottom, but their needs to be more exposure at the top to create this boom at the bottom. Look what the X-games has done for sports like snowboarding! I know this is not an answer to any problems, but in order to manifest change we must identify the true problems at hand.
andresisthename	Nailed	#11	[-]
Posts: 22 (07/07/09 01:13:36) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	DaGr8Purilate you definitely nailed there, we can't blame Chad for going over to Ice Speed Skating but we definitely hated to see him go. Here in America people are way to concerned with names if you ask me, it has become a culture, now with the potential to make things that are not worthy of attention a phenomenon, while completely passing on things that are truly worth of the effort just because those things don't have enough reputation. "The trend is about the reputation behind the stuff rather than the stuff itself!" A frustrated fellow Aggressive Skater once told me. I already saw the almost complete downfall of Aggressive Inline Skating here in America when it was taken away from the X-games in favor of Skateboarding. All that while the sport continued to boom in the intl. X-games, so what is the result of it? More and more America is losing talents from it. The country that used to be a power house it's now almost absent. The actions of the USARS might seem to be doing the same for Inline Speed Skating, but like Crazydotcom said what we can do should be our concern; it appears the corporate world isn't coming so we are going to have to invite them in ourselves! Maybe skating some more? Making fan websites? How about more videos? I discovered Inline Speed Skating on YouTube so don't tell me they don't work. Telling every friend and family member you have about it and try to get them in the sport without passing for a nuisance (that happened to me already so I had to take it easy) Get in touch with trainers and try to make them understand the beauty of it. This can really work, about a year after I retired from Aggressive I became a personal trainer and I never recommended skating to the people I trained, now I talked to a friend of mine, a respected personal trainer about the sport, got him to do a couple of runs and he is so into it that he got a bunch of his clients to give the sport a try. Then would come the more complicated issue of skating clubs, to me this is really like putting the bell on the cats neck, I haven't been able to figure out how to skate well yet, even less how to make a team, but if I don't do it then who will? I figure we have to face the fact we are fans and practitioners of a sport that have little support and we have to do all that while still keeping our day jobs, and still be super dads, super moms, super hubbies and super wives. How to get it all done I truly don't know, I can't even write a resume pretty even less all that but I guess the beauty is on not giving up and stop worrying about if he sport is well liked or not and JUST DO IT! We don't care for rep or names we care for skating and let's make sure everyone that knows us know that. Another issue of equal importance is how to approach the youth about it, we wouldn't want the sport to become a Harley Davidson beautiful but for the old! Kids get lured in differently, we have to find a way to literally deliver the sport to them and that we have to figure it out as well.

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Reverse Cycle needed urgently in Speed Skating.

Reverse Cycle needed urgently in Speed Skating.

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