March 10th, 2011 - by Monday

Goulburn Fruit Jam Contest Report

Tags: australia, brad watson, dave jacobs, dom west, gerard ahrens, goulburn, goulburn fruit jam, hayden golder, jeremy dalbis, matt carratelli, owen parry, shane onus, thomas dalbis

Do you like this? Share it with your friends and help Be-Mag to spread the word about Rollerblading. Like us on Facebook, add us on Google+ or follow us on Twitter to get the latest updates from the Blading world!

The Goulburn Fruit Jam, held in outback Australia for the second time running, never ceases to surprise me. We pick quite a good skatepark, in the middle of nowhere, and a whole bunch of rollerbladers turn up from all over Australia. This is the type of dedication we see in rollerbladers all over the world, we'll mission anywhere to just make it to a comp and catch up with our mates. This year was no different, with even more rollers coming from even further corners of Australia than last year.

Text by Owen Parry
Photography by Hayden Golder & Jeremy Dalbis

CJ Wellsmore made it this year – he wasn't locked out of his house without his skates this time! Danny Jensen was back to defend his title and the local newspaper was eating up the stories for breakfast, lunch and dinner! We had two front page spreads, a back page spread and a number of other articles. Our biggest achievement was getting Hayden Golder's prime photo-flyer next to the Sudoko – the page we figured would get even more eye traffic than the cover in an outback town like Goulburn.

The comp started out in Canberra this year with a pre-session skate at Woden two days before the comp. There were well over 30 rollers here already, with some of the older guys like Shane Onus and Dave Jacobs showing everyone how it's 'supposed to be' done. Peep Brad Watson's "Star Edit" to see some of the tricks that got laced in this session.

Brad Watson's "Star Edit"

The forecast for the comp day, Saturday, wasn't looking great with storms predicted in the afternoon and a very solid wind blowing all day. The RollVic crew made the decision to cut things short and get on with the finals at 2pm (instead of around 3 or 4pm). This probably reduced the number of competitors who didn't want to pay for a shorter skate, but it definitely didn't reduce the level of skating – which turned out to be phenomenal. I'll leave the details of the tricks to be spoken for in the following edits.

Razors Podcast by Thomas Dalbis