Roller Marathon Paris

16.10.2017

On Sunday 15.10. 2017 in the beautiful sunny weather the first Paris inline marathon took place. The venue - the start before the Eiffel Tower - attracted a lot of professional speed skaters and amateur enthusiasts, so about 3000 skaters were gathered at the start. Of course Tempish inline team was there as well: Zdeněk Sauer started in the SOLO category. The DUO category, relay-race of pairs, was represented by Hana Duspivová and her training partner Robert Friedrichs (guesting for TEMPISH inline team). Matěj Hloušek from TEMPISH Heartbeat Inline was also not missing, and he also started in the SOLO category.
The start was organized into three waves, Matěj started in Wave A and from Czech competitors he took the best time: 01:08:28 - which brought him 35th place in the overall ranking in the SOLO category. Zdenek started in Wave B and he made time 01:26:11.
Hanka and Robert took together time 1:26:41 - which in the DUO MIXTE category (female / male) was 7th place and in the total ranking of all 462 relay-races 23th place. However, neither Hanka nor Robert were satisfied with the result, they were aiming for higher ranking. Unfortunately Hanka was shot down in about 2 km after the start, by another competitor in a way that would be worth of disqualification. After the fall, she finished her half marathon and handed the relay to Robert, but the loss to the front was big. Robert did his best and but catching the lading positions were without a chance.
The first three finalists were Ewen Fernandez with a time of 01:00:48, followed by Nolan Beddiaf with more than a minute worst time and third Guillaume de Mallevoue.
All of our competitors described the race as an attractive because of the location, but the prce for the beautiful position along the Seine river was high - the track was very demanding and was totally inappropriate for skating. There were long sections across the cobblestones, over the gravel, the competitors twice turned almost "on the spot", the narrowing of the width was just for one skater only, the pedestrians and the tourists were on the track, etc ... Maybe organizers haven't counted with such abundant participation , however organizationally the race was not successfully finished - the issue of the starting numbers in a very small space, almost at the start line where the competitors were literally passing through each other, half an hour long lines before the entrance to the designated area of the race /because of the security measures, everyone's backpack had to be checked/, another half an hour long lines for the starting number, also for the storage of things as well, 4 toilets for almost 2900 competitors .... Hanka said: "I was really curious about this race, but I must say that I was really disappointed, during the race there were things that I have never experienced before, such as the pavement cubes were on the road, where the track was leading, so the competitors, who were at the edge, jumped up on the sidewalk where was an asphalt and rode down the hill. The rest of us that were in the middle had to ride on the cubes which were slowing us down... Or, in the S-curve around the island, some of them shortened the track over that island ... For me this track was horror, furthermore, the fall where a Frenchman guy was overtaking me in the narrow part. We both could fit on the track easily, but he simply pushed me in my shoulder and knocked me on a curb. I have finished the race only because of Robert. When you know that you will lose the race not only ourselves, but for your partner as well, you just do your best... but I had to fight the pain a lot *. However, the azure skies and the start just under the Eiffel to offset this terrible experience. "Zdeněk adds that for the next year the organizers have a lot to improve.
* In the Czech Republic, it turned out that Hanka broke the crossbones when she fell on the curb.