Report: Rollfest 2008

Another hot summer, another edition of Rollfest – the biggest holiday event, or I would say a bunch of rollerblading oriented events organized in Triocity, Poland – the best seaside facility in the country. Rollfest 08 brought some changes to the common schedule of this event.



To make the 2008 edition even longer, guys from OGR crew prepared an introductory contest - two days before the official Rollfest beginning, they organized a mini-ramp jam, followed by a beach party which was the perfect way to start this annual gathering of people who just love to skate and party.

There were about 10 participants in the miniramp comp, since the beginning the most interesting skating was brought by Marcin Pośpiech – Katowice (3rd), Maciek Mastalerz Luksusowa Vodka – Częstochowa (2nd), Łukasz Kaźmierczak Emblema OGR CUBE Skateshop team rider– Poznań (1st). The evening and the next few days were filled with parties, fighting with waves, skating with 40+ people at once and meeting new rollfest’s participants on the Sopot’s molo night drinking.



The street comp wasn’t missed though. It took place in Thursday. Spots were selected by the locals, with elimination round on the skate plaza ledge, semi finals at three line rails and the final on a big ledge. Unfortunately it turned out that we had to change the final spot due to car parked to close – locals informed us about good rail near by so we all went there to check it. There were about 30 participants – mostly the young generation of polish inline – they were fully juiced and they fear nothing. I haven’t witnessed so much competition between contestants for a long time.



Some of the young contestants shined with a really good level. Some of the tricks landed were: full AO Unity, full True Mistral, full True Cloudy, Dardspin Topsoul, Truespin Royal. Others tried to be creative or hardcore and just couldn’t stop to think up different gaps, transfers and stunts all over the place. Crazy tricks were landed together with dangerous bails. The best three skaters of the day were Kołodziejczak Hubert (1st), Gróczyk Przemek OGR member (2nd) and Infinity Clothing team rider Zarzeczny Krystian (3rd).



Another novum was the form of the Rollfest final – usually the last weekend was assigned for Skateplaza contest, however this time Triocity held the first edition of the Baltic Games (The festival of extreme sports with concerts and stuff) so it was a great occasion to incorporate and take Rollfest to another level. The Baltic Games itself was a great event. With lots of attractions like concerts, FMX shows it drew the attention of TV, radio and so on giving us a chance to get rollerblading a good exposure.



The competition had Am and Pro division. There were around 30 Ams among which the best were: Bartosz Górczyk (3rd) who had a flawless run finished with a clean Hardspin Topsoul, Robert Syrowatka (2nd) who was very consistent and confident, but his runs lacked at least one good hammer, Mateusz Radziszewski (1st) who planned his runs very carefully, used the whole park doing difficult tricks and as a result got the podium. The Pro division which included Chaz Sands, Ene Stefan and great polish park riders such as Piotr Combrzyński, Tomek Piekarski, Łukasz Wolski, Przemyslaw Madej or Adam Żurawiecki were stunning. These guys knew how to use such a big park, and flawlessly killed it with lines, spins and stunts.



Ene put a smile on every face by doing super clean disaster Hardspin Topsoul, Madej cleared the park with fluent lines, Adam showed that Kind Grind is still his 'thing' doing perfect 540 disaster kind and a high 900. The real deal came with the final four contestants – ultra high flights, great consistency and massive tricks. The fourth place was won by Łukasz Wolski 'Fisha' who not only did nice airs but also found cool lines where True Pornstars both sides weren’t a problem. Tomek Piekarski “Chester” got 3rd place, showing that having a short brake off skating didn’t put him away from the top. Chaz Sands, one of the best rollerbladers worldwide and Piotr Combrzyński the young talent from Poland were the front-runners since the very beginning and constantly gave the crowed a reason to shout, landing each trick smoothly and without any effort. The winner of Baltic Games Piotr Combrzyński did the highest wall rides, 450 Disaster Backroayles and what’s most important he connected the stunts in one huge line without losing speed .



Rollfest`08 was a success once again, 9 days of partying, meeting old pals and seeing new young blood who will dominate the scene in coming years. Thanks all the sponsors for the support and for making it all possible. Special thanks goes to Green Association for doing so much for the polish rollerblading scene, Be-mag for supporting in every possible way, Hedonskate for helping the polish scene to grow up, The Conference for their kind support, Razors for their team and support, Infinity Clothing for helping me to organize this event, OGR for their support, for preparing the mini ramp Jam and before party on Hel, Emblema for support and all the photos and all others for supporting our events!!!

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