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News & Media Center: Latest Rolling News

Australian Rolling Open
published 01:39pm 1 April 2010

After it's success in 2009 the Australian Rolling Open moves to Adelaide in 2010.

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Become a fan of Skate Australia
published 11:44am 26 March 2010

Skate Australia have created a facebook fan page to allow us to have more functionalities and improvements in communicating regular updates to our skate communities & members.

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Goulburn Fruit Jam Results
published 10:53am 11 March 2010

On Saturday the 28th of March in the little township of Goulburn in NSW representatives of the rollerblading community from all around Australia and internationally came together to celebrate their sport by participating in the Goulburn Fruit Jam.

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Goulburn Fruit Jam
published 12:29pm 9 February 2010

Goulburn Skatepark is situated 45mins from Canberra and 2.5 hours South of Sydney. The park is massive, a hybrid of bowl and street to suit any skater, and has even been graced by the likes of Brian Aragon and Mike 'Murda' Johnson!

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Rolling Snaps!
published 03:26pm 30 October 2009

Check out some great snaps from the rolling boys, click read more to view...

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Rolling Wrap Up
published 03:49pm 9 October 2009

2009 WRS Pro Tour: The Australian Rolling Open (Melbourne, Australia) from W.R.S. World Rolling Series on Vimeo.

Wrap Up

Spectators at the 2009 Australian Rolling Open witnessed, without doubt, some of the best park skating ever to occur in Australia - possibly in the world.

The eagerness of punters to see the only World Rolling Series Pro stop in the Asia Pacific region was clear from first thing in the morning with people showing up well before the advertised opening time of 9am.

Under 16s got underway around 10:30 with two heats before the final kicked off with the top 4. Tom Coley-Sowry lead the group with clean consistent tricks stitched together into some smooth lines.

A faulty mic caused a delay to the Amatuer heats, and while a replacement was being organised, idle skaters still waiting to skate started hitting the kink rail with no consideration for keeping themselves fresh for the comp. Things were done that could’ve left any spectator thinking we’d already moved into the finals, such as a true top porn buy Campbelltown NSW resident Kieran Deans, and a kindgrind to true top porn by stuntman Danny Jensen who recently moved to Melbourne from Auckland New Zealand in search of a bigger skate scene.

Rampfest staff stepped up with an amplifier to help rectify the lack of MC’ing capabilities and while not perfect it definitely helped to get things rolling again.

The amateur qualifiers concluded after 7 heats leaving the judges to do the sums to get the initial list of 36 competitors down to a top 15 who would battle it out in an Amateur Final, with the winner to receive a paid-for flight to the AIL Finals in Woodward West.

While the scores of his Am. Final heat were being tallied, Brad Watson hosted the light hearted Spaz For Stash event, in which young skaters would launch themselves above the foam pit in an attempt to grab a large bag of various prizes such as dvds, tshirts and wheels, suspended high up in the air by old man of the sea Watson with his fishing rod. This made for some good entertainment while the Pros got warmed up for their shot at some bigger prizes.

The 10 highest placed skaters from the Amateur final would also be allowed to move through to the Pro division, making up a field of 17 skaters including one Wildcard entrant (ex Australian Pro, Sam Fogarty), skating off in 3 heats.

6 skaters were announced as the finalists, and as soon as things kicked off, the calibre of tricks really made the divide between Amateur and Pro clear. Bigger more technical stunts were being thrown down with the consistency and solid controlled style that only comes with raw talent and years of practice.

Through out the day we had the opportunity to blow the minds of initially disappointed (because they couldn’t use the park) scooter riders and bmxers and if any of them were still around at the time of the Pro division they would have been converts. The park’s owner/designer/constructor was amazed at what took place.

All the heats and finals of the Pro division were peer judged (each skater participating in the Pro heats, not skating in the current heat, voted on their top 3 in the current heat) – a first in an Australian competition, it’s success in fairly picking winners will definitely result in it’s use in future competitions.

Many of the amateurs that made it through to the Pro division were already exhausted from skating most of the day. With one exception , Sydney styler Simon Dorabialski, stepping it up in the final after skating hard all day – wallride rocket fish back into the quarter.

Brad Watson also had enough left to attempt fakie backflip over the large launch box sticking it solid on the third attempt to a roar from his home crowd

The heats had been 5 minute jams, with that being the plan for the final, but once Rian Arnold, Brian Aragon, Simon Dorabialski, Chris Haffey, Brian Shima and CJ Wellsmore got going the energy levels lead to a 15 minute session of the best park skating imaginable. It was jaw dropper after jaw dropper.

The day of the competition was also the first time any of these skaters had had a decent session of the park, illustrating ‘have sick skills, will travel’ talents.

There was just way too much stuff to give a run down of tricks, plus the technicality would just mean paragraphs to explain a single trick.

Shima was stalling the back wall extension time after time – an awesome effort considering most were struggling to get any where near the top. Prior to the event only two other skaters had managed to get there.

Aragon snapped one of the floor boards on his 3rd attempt of a massive 540 gap that is hard to believe anyone would even think of in the first place.

And then there was Wellsmore. Launching, grinding and spinning into and out of so many flawless tricks, skating hard non-stop for the duration of the final and only falling TWICE, leaving him with the unanimous vote for number one, smiling all the way to the bank, $1300 the richer.

A purse of $200 was also awarded for the winner of the Velvet Couch Biggest Hammer competition, rewarding the skater who landed the best trick of the entire day. This day it was Danny Jensen for his aforementioned effort on the kinked rail.

The injection of excitement into the Australian rolling scene from this event has been huge and while the discipline is a long way from receiving the high levels of interest from the mainstream that it once received its clear the skill level hasn’t stopped progressing for a second.

You can check the official edit of the event here and see results and standings in the World Rolling Series at www.worldrollingseries.com

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