One of the things people always beg for is a company to "give back to the sport". Of course everyone has their opinion of the right and the wrong way to do that, but one of the main ways to give back is often not mentioned. The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I do think the best reward you can get for your hard work in this sport is winning, but it does help to know that winning can get you somewhere. That if you work your butt off and are successful, there are people out there that are willing to give back to you. There are lots of companies that give back to the top of our sport, but I think Powerslide is the only company willing to fund 25 skaters from 10 countries for a month long racing tour of Europe. Which included a week training on the worlds track. I'm not foolish, I do realize that Powerslide receives great advertisement for this. But seriously 25 skaters is a huge number, and while they get a lot of slack for having such a big team, it truly is great for the sport. For every one person who says "the Powerslide team is too big" there is 10 kids saying "I'm going to work hard every day so I can be on that team ." I'm not saying this is the only way to give back to the sport, I'm just saying it is a great thing that is often over looked.(for the record, my sponsor didn't ask me to nor even know I was writing this. I just understand how much it takes just for the 4 weeks I was there. Plus they still have 48 other weeks to worry about)
Now that I got all that serious stuff out of the way, lemme talk about my team for a minute. I wrote a blog last year saying how much we sat around and talked about skating, that didn't change. It's just what happens when you put a bunch of addicts together, and that's really what we are. Addicted to the most amazing sport in the world. And I think the best thing about our team is that everyone on it is legitimately nice. When you spend 4 weeks with a group of people who are high stressed from racing, tired from lack of sleep and travel, homesick, and sometimes beat up from falling you can't fake nice. If you're not a nice person you can only hide it for so long. While I do admit some of us may fall slightly into the sarcastic (insert whatever word you choose here) category, everyone would still do anything for anyone on the team. In a month together you can either start to hate each other, or bond into a family. We went the family route. Still to this day it amazes me that a group with so many different ages and nationalities can be so similar. The day I left it was sad to leave everyone, but it was experience I'll remember for the rest of my life
Ok that ended up being serious too. And it seems like anytime I go on trips like this people wanna know the other stories. What happens in your down time? Did you guys do anything fun? Is Ferre always that loud??(YES) So here is the super short version of some of the stuff that happened, abbreviated and probably makes no sense to anyone that wasn't there(feel free to stop reading now): There was a night at Rocco's to the Silver , where me and Ew had an amazing conversation. An earring search(that wasn't a happy time). Several grueling car rides in packs of cars. A most miserable day in the cold and rain in GG. A failed attempt at karaoke that ended up not too bad. Con cen tra tion. The big race(teamswings80mm). A struggle for power. One might have even fallen in love. And one of the greatest victory celebrations ever. Guess you had to be there, but trust me it was a good time.
Europe was an amazing trip, with amazing people. I hope everyone I met along the way had as good as time as me, and I hope to see you all again soon.
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