Easter Slalom Showdown

On bank holiday Easter Monday a friendly unofficial slalom competition was held in Hyde Park. This was my first competitive game. I wasn’t overly confident but it was great to meet the other slalom skaters on the scene and to see the high level that can be achieved. This was a chance to also experience a bit of public performance.



The main competition had two people facing off. Each person had two 30 seconds runs to do their fancy slalom stuff. Three judges then pointed to their favourite to go through to the next round.

I got knocked out in the first round but they had a wild card drawn to fill in an extra participant place. Guess who got that? It was hardly surprising but I got knocked out again. 



They also had a jump competition where you had to get over a bar. I’ve never considered myself a jumper but I thought I might as well play, especially as they set the first jump height at less than a foot.

On our earlier runs everyone did fancier jumps including 180s and I did a hop over on one attempt. As it got higher people got a little more focused. When I landed a jump I was waiting to hear the bar to hit the floor behind me. Much to my surprise I lasted a lot longer than I did. I managed 80cm in the end. The winner did 86cm. 



I didn’t perform my best that day on the slalom showdown but I did learn that I could jump a lot higher than I thought. Merry Easter!

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