Old-time European racers, where are they now?

[Jani Soderhall]

In the FCR series forum, John Gilmour posted a request as to the whereabouts of the best European slalomers from the 80's and 90's.

I have a few answers to that question and choose to start a new thread in the European forum instead, so that it can be followed up once more skaters are found, or visits the site themselves.


Here's some of the info I have gathered over the last weeks:

Andi Sidler, Switzerland, has retired. He is running two very successful Thai restaurants (his wife is Thai) in Switzerland.
Still in good physical condition as he continues his martial arts practice. Could maybe be persuaded to participate again.

Daniel Ridoli and Santi Diaz, Switzerland, went to the race in Gruningen this spring and seemed a bit disappointed to see such long cone distances as the courses were set for longboarders. Never bothered to do their second runs. Andi was a spectator but left even earlier.

Although these old Swiss friends are not that active, Switzerland is probably the most active European slalom country. Andi reports that basically every sport shop has slalom boards, mostly local productions and contests are common.

Luca Giammarco, Italy, is still fit, as he runs an indoor climbing hall, but hasn't run cones for years. Still interested though. He might do a come back next year! For those of you who are active now and want to keep your ranking, better practice more often!

Gianluca Ferrero says Paolo Gatti, Italy, is not skating actively, as there are no other Italians skating much right now. Could change with the right encouragement.

Josef Stefka, Czech republic, was already difficult to motivate in the early/mid 90s. He is running a sightseeing bus company to take tourists from Czech republic to the rest of Europe.

Anatoly Matsukevich, Russia, is not skating much himself, for lack of contests and sponsorship.

Gints Gailitis, Latvia, reports that they still have contests once a year to determine the Latvian champion, but it's just among old friends, and nobody practices seriously. He says that that Gints Zommers is still very strong.

I met with Erik Raitviir, Estonia, earlier this summer and he is not slaloming at the moment, nor did he know about any slalom activity in Estonia at the moment.

Pär Svensson and Pauli Saastamoinen, Sweden, are skating again and were both thinking about coming to Morro Bay 2002, but didn't make it.

In Sweden there are also two of the "Pro's" from the late 70's and early 80's Fabian Björnstjerna and Peder Strauss who have taken their boards out of the closet and bought new equipment and they are skating now and then with Pär and Pauli.

Stockholm, Sweden has a whole group of slalomers (20-30) attending the regular Wednesday races (see the Swedish forum). As many of them are longboarders the courses tend to have a bit longer cone distances than the tight style courses we used to do, so Pär, Paoli, Fabian, his son and Peder sometimes skate in other places.

Anders Auer, another strong Swede, now lives in Australia. Staying fit with surfing he'd do well in any contest he'd enter. I have seen in the NCDSA forum that there are Australian events in preparation, so hopefully Anders will keep in touch with them.

Hans "Corky" Koraeus, Sweden, although not a top slalomer is thinking about the possibilities of running an event in Malmo (close to Copenhagen now that there is a bridge between Denmark and Sweden). Read more in the Swedish forum.

The English skaters are very active, and most are identified, thanks to efforts by Chris Linford and US participation by Martin Drayton and Paul Price. Martin Sweeney is not easy to persuade though. You already know many of the other UK skaters. I'd say the UK is one of the most active European slalom countries at the moment.


In France I have met with Jean-Paul Alavoine who still skates, but mostly freestyle/streetstyle every now and then. He would like to do some more slalom, so count him in! He is also in regular contact with José DeMatos. If the two of them get serious again, that should be a good foundation for a top French team. The third slalomer in the old French trio of top slalomers is Pierre-André Senizergues, who is running the extremely successful Etnies shoes, in the US.

Jean-Michel Attia, Marseille, France, has been very active on the NCDSA forum over the last year, but finds he has not got enough time to be active and respond. He still reads most of it though and is very updated on the whole scene. Runs cones as often as he can allow himself given his new job.

Dieter Fleischer, Bordeaux, France, is active mostly in longboard slalom which is more or less the only slalom activity in France.

I'm sorry if I have forgotten any one of those I have talked to recently. If you have info about other old-time slalomers please reply to this post with information.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Moderator on 2002-10-07 09:38 ]</font>

[Adam Trahan]

Thank you again and again Jani.

I have a stack of Slalom! that I read from time to time and really enjoy them. Your list of names here is excellent and your report is what seems to reflect a cycle once again.

Perhaps Slalom Skateboarding in Europe will find a resurgence on it's own accord.

What is the recipe for Europe? Maybe it is longboard or giant slalom?

I've got a couple of longboards and I enjoy them but not for slalom. They are for ditches and pumping around the flat. I've got a couple of new/old school pool boards that I use at our local skatepark and I enjoy using them to re-visit my old bag of tricks in the kidney pool but it is not slalom.

Perhaps it is my multi interests in skateboarding that draws me to slalom, I am not sure. But it seems to help. In my kitchen, I will cook up an idea, make the recipe and then keep it in my quiver but it's all about fun.

Here is my new recipe: My Super G board and getting out and laying tracks with it. I have a 36" x 9" slight cambered composite deck (Pocket Pistol Super "G") that is soooo much fun to ride. I am taking it out on low traffic times on long sweeping downhills. Swooping, driving turns, running hard at speed and this is augmenting my slalom interest. The new milled Avalon's combined with Seismic 135mm's and the sensation is refreshing for riding the black ribbon.

This is my palate.

For slalom to come back, it's got to be fun and there are so many good meals to choose from in the United States. I hope Europe can cook up a good resurgence before we get full and possibly take a nap. It would be awesome to see both sides going off.

No matter, thank you again Jani for your renewed interest. I look forward to meeting you at Morro Bay my friend.

[Joachim Leonhardt]

I remember only a few from the German guys doing slalom from the mid 70's (1976) to the late 70's / early 80's (1982):



<b>Klaus-Peter Reintges, Essen, Germany</b> alias “Klaus-Bärbel” as his friend called him (very good at freestyle and slalom --),



<b>Christian Lückert, Germany</b> (one of the fast ones in NRW - Germany),



<b>Kerbaum (?first name lost), Essen, Germany</b> (very fast slalomskateboarder, too),



<b>Michael Bergis, Essen, Germany</b> (he is lost somewhere - very sad about it, we were doing freestyle together, he was 2nd in freestyle Munich-Euro Open in 1978),



<b>Holger Kosfelder, Essen, Germany</b> (he did freestyle, clean precise footwork and long wheelies and slalom no longer skating - I met him two years ago, he has a G&S HH with Trackers and RR, but the deck is broken – this was the deck I was 1st in an over all open contest in 1979 (1st freestyle, 3rd(?) slalom, 2nd long jump; Michael and Klaus-Peter jury, otherwise no change ),



<b>Andreas Preuß, Essen, Germany</b> (he did slalom only till 1981/2 - he restarted slalom 2002)



<b>Frank Klötgen, Essen, Germany</b> (he did freestyle and slalom, now about 30 years old)



Just me (stopped skating in aprox. 1981/2 – 1998 restarted skateboarding in general).

This year is a real blast !

[Max Bimler]

Lückert sein Vorname ist Christian.

max

[Jani Soderhall]

Max! Good to hear that you are online with the slalom community. Hope to see you soon. How about coming to Kreuzlingen November 3? Chris Eggers, Paul Price and myself are planning to come.

[Jani Soderhall]

After my recent trip to St Petersburg, Russia, with a mission to sponsor some slalomers with wheels provided by Howard Gordon of 3dm-sport.com, I have some news but not much about the best Russian slalomers.

Anatoly Matsukevich is staying in shape as a snowboard trainer and in the summer runs a roller skate rental together with his daughter Dina and his son who skates occasionally. Anatoly will be back on his board as soon as the snow melts. He says that the skaters nowadays would like to have branded boards (ie American made) rather than home made boards. But for wheels they are now settled thanks to Howard. There is room here for some board producer to sponsor these guys!

Denis Kozhin and Sergey Moschenkov are probably among the strongest future hopes for the Russian team. Both are keen to come to Europe if they can sort out some sponsorship. These guys used to be good before so you can imagine now after years of snowboard training!

Elena Sinadolova, the fastest female slalomer from the 90's, doesn't skate much nowadays, but wouldn't mind doing it again. Check out her interview to be publised any day on this site.

Alexey Makarov, former chief judge of the ISSA has retired from skateboard activity but works with timing equipment at Tag Heuer. He was delighted to hear that slalom is happening again, and he'll probably check in this forum every now and then. His English is excellent, which is not always the case with the other Russian skaters.

The family Alexeyev, Igor, Irina and their son Alexey were out of town while I was visiting, but I'm sure they would join in once the spring sessions gets started again. I'm looking forward to see the skills of Alexey considering how talented he was already in 1995. He'll soon be faster than his parents. That would be cool!

[Chris Eggers]

Ok, the names I can add here are maybe not known too much, but they are active slalomers here in Germany and have been during the 80´s.

Yoyo Schulz: married father of two sons and one girl, lives in Schwalbach near Frankfurt. Yoyo is a hardcore freestyler still progressing, but he can be awfully fast on a slalom board too! We skate together once in a while (last saturday at a TV shot for Sat1 in Bottrop for example)

Uli Scheonborn: although a freestyler too, he shows up at slalom races when we tell him to come and has fun doing it and is well talented. He lives in Hanau near Frankfurt and runs a nostalgic newspaper weborder service

Bernhard "Frankenblitz" Kuempel works for SKF and is married with one child and runs slalom once in a while and has a lot of fun

Georg Kube (was european vice champ in I think 1978 or 79) lives in Karlsruhe as a father of two and skates cones with myself once in a while and is fast too. He goes to races as often as work and family allow.

Myself, I live in Karlsruhe and skate vert,mini, freestyle and slalom at least twice a week and I want to go to as many races as possible and do something for the sport

Christian Seewaldt:Lives in Wiesbaden and runs a skateboard wholesale. Skates cones again I heard. He has looong legs and was fast as I remember, but I haven´t heard much from him lately

Attila Aszodi: you all know what he is doing and where he is, if not check out his interview on http://www.sk8mag.de

[Vlad Popov]

I finally got a hold of (a former President of the Russian Slalom Federation) Yuri Fomin, well, his son Anton, to be exact. They aren’t doing much slalom in Saratov, as the scene there has been taken over by snowboarding. Seems to be a trend everywhere in Russia. But it shouldn’t take long for them to get back on the right boards in the summer.
Saratov was a major slalom center during the last slalom era. I heard their reception and comp organization was especially good.
The Saratov slalomers have St. Petersburg contacts and vice versa. Let’s see what comes out of it...
The Ukrainians next.

[Vlad Popov]

Matsukevich is in da house! Currently registered by “Anatoliy”. He and his 47 years are here to question a myth of an age-related slalom performance deterioration. Heh-heh-heh.

Oops, he's gone. Must be the name varification process. FBI is working extra hard latelly. Must be code orange on ss.com

[Anatoliy Matsukevich]

sorry, Vlad, for my english. I've re-registered.
I'm writing with Dina's help.
Jani visited SPb & this made our skaters. Start skating, but yesterday was snow again and we're waiting for good weather.
MY GREAT THANKS TO JANI FOR HIS HELPNESS AND SPONSORSHIP. Wheels that he brought us will be given to more than 10 skaters.
We'll start practice soon.

[Vlad Popov]

So nice to see you here! Also, thank you Howard Gordon for providing these wheels. Train hard!
Vlad.

[Anatoliy Matsukevich]

03.05.03. russian team practiced the 1st training near the Kirov stadium. There were: Alekseev, Ivanov, Matsukevich, Moshenkov. Everyting was OK, if not for some children, who crossed the cones line in different directions on skates, bicycles and scooters. Next practice is planned near the stadium on wednesday 07.05.03.

[Vlad Popov]

This is just in my mailbox. It was in Russian 5 minutes ago, I tried to put it in as close English as I could find.
______________________________________

Hello to all the skaters, especially slalomers, from Saratov and myself, Jury Fomin.
I'm very happy that there's a new slalom-specific site (ed. note- this site).
Let me share with you what is going on here. I'm the head of the Saratov's Federation of the new Extreme sports. I organize and run snowboard, wakeboard and windsurfing competitions. We will bring back slalom and inline skates this year.

As for myself, I'm very much into snowboarding, and even more into windsurfing (ed. note: Anatoly Matsukevitch seems to be doing the same thing in Saint Petersburg! Talking about "convergent evolution"!). Windsurfing takes a lot of time, everything else becomes secondary, this beats any drug dependence!
The idea to hold a Slalom Cup in Russia sound great because the good memories from the old comps still live on. I'll be happy to take part in any slalom competition for two reasons: it'd be great to see and chat with the old timers, and it'd be interesting to see the newcomers.
Although I haven't practiced slalom since 1996, I could get a couple of practice sessions before the comp. My physical shape is good, and slalom technique doesn't get rusty with time, so I will be able to put on a fight.

More info on the coming Russian slalom completions would be appreciated. What kind of slalom, road grade, cone distances ect. I hope to meet many of my old slalom bodies at these comps and I encourage everyone to take part in them, or just simply show up for a chat. I wish to all the organizers to put on successful events. And don't forget about the after-party!

Yuri Fomin.

[Jani Soderhall]

Denis Kozhin and Sergey Moschenkov, Russia are trying to get their act together to make it to the Paris World Cup 2003, although they just recently started their training again.

Hope they can make it!

[Pierre Samray]

Great work Jani to find all this old slalomers
I expect to have people from Russia in Antibes in September (Russians enjoy the French Riviera!) I think slalomer from Latvia try to come too.

[Mattias Gustavsson]

Has Stas Mironenko (Ukraine) retired?

[Donald Campbell]

MAX VICTORIA

one of the most influential racing legends of the late 70's in germany.
still living in cologne and still skating he lost his curly hair though but he has been seen skating the cones at the first G.O.G.

[Jani Soderhall]

Has Stas Mironenko (Ukraine) retired?

I learned this summer from Gints Gailitis, Latvia, that Stas wanted to come to the contest in Riga/Jurmala, but never made it. It may not be so easy for him to travel and have enough money to spend on a skateboard trip. The economy of Ukraine citizens is still lagging behind. I'm sure Gints promised to help him out, but in the end he didn't show up.

/Jani

[Mattias Gustavsson]

By the way Jani, is Martin Willners (still) active? i've heard that he lives in Jönköping
(not very far away From my hometown växjö)

[alavoine jean paul]

Yeah, say hi to Martin from all of the French skaters that used to go to the Swedish summer camp if you see him, we all have great memories from those camps ...

[Jani Soderhall]

By the way Jani, is Martin Willners (still) active? i've heard that he lives in Jönköping (not very far away From my hometown växjö)

Martin doesn't slalom these days, but he came to the Swedish Championships in 2004, just in the early morning to say hi to everyone. He used to live in Jönköping, but has since then lived in Åre (+somewhere I can't remember the name of) and now he lives in Strängnäs.

He's the editor of a magazine for sport shops and even does reviews on snowboard and skateboard equipment every now and then.

Unfortunately I don't see or speak to him very often these days. I should try to visit him next summer. He lives not too far from where my mom lives.

/Jani

[Jani Soderhall]

I've been exchanging a couple of emails with Stas Mironenko from Ukraine during the last days. He's planning to participate in the European Championships in Riga this summer.

He used to be one of the fastest Soviet skaters back in the days and the only one who could really challenge Anatoly Matsukevich in national events.


Stas with his daughter Sofja 2006

Welcome back to the scene, Stas!

/Jani

[Martin Drayton]

Looks like he's supporting England at the World Cup this summer...Hmmmm.
COME ON TRINIDAD! SOCA WARRIORS FOR THE CUP!