The 2008 Junior & Senior Artistic Roller Skating Championships were held in the town of
Fuengirola, Costa del Sol, Spain Monday 22 September ~ Saturday 27 September 2008.

The Background: The BRSF webmaster and his wife had booked two weeks in September as a late summer break, with the intention of visiting the Costa del Sol. Upon discovering that a European Roller Skating event was taking place in Fuengirola during one of those weeks the decision which resort to visit became academic. Some forty years ago John & Ruth were modestly competent with Ice Dance at recreational level, and more recently have supported both a son and a daughter as they played Roller Inline Hockey.

The Venue was a local authority sports hall, with raised seating for 420 spectators on each side of the hall. All the usual sports hall floor markings having been removed and replaced with a series of "8's".

Monday, 22/09 was the registration and practice day. Having never seen skaters practising their figures of eight, it was fascinating to see what the skaters were doing and how they were doing it!

Tuesday, 23/09 was the first of the competition days. In the morning the Junior Ladies & Junior Men's 'Figures' competitions, with the associated medal ceremony, the afternoon was set aside for practice sessions.

In the evening, Junior Compulsory Dance, Junior Short Programme the opening ceremony and later in the evening, the Senior Compulsory Dance competition. The opening ceremony included a welcome to the teams, a dance troupe, which without any supporting multi-lingual announcements we took to be a local folk dance group.

Wednesday, 24/09 the morning session was the Senior Men's and the Senior Women 'Figures' followed by the associated medal ceremony. The afternoon was set aside for practice sessions.

The evening session was the Junior Ladies & Junior Men's Short Programme followed by the Senior Pairs Short Programme.

Thursday, 25/09 the morning and afternoon was set aside for practice sessions, followed in the early evening with more competitions which included the Junior Pairs Long Programme, the Junior Ladies Long Programme and the Senior Pairs Long Programme, the evening concluded with medal ceremonies for the days competitions.

Friday, 26/09 the morning was set aside for practice sessions, followed in the afternoon and evening by more competitions which included the Senior Ladies and the Senior Men's Short Programmes and the Junior Men's Long Programme. The evening finished with the medals ceremony for a number of the junior competitions.

Saturday, 27/09 the final day, again the morning is practice sessions. The day's competitions commenced in the early afternoon with the Senior Ladies Long Programme. There being 18 competitors the competition extended to the early evening, at which time ten competitors took part in the Senior Free Dance competition. The final competition of the championships was the Senior Men's Long Programme.

The support given to the various skaters was most enthusiastic with much cheering, clapping and flag waving.

The evening, and the championships started to draw to a close with the medal ceremonies for the remaining senior competitions. Finally all the competitors took to the floor and assembled for the closing ceremony, during which a bag of keepsakes was handed to each competitor as a memento of their visit to Fuengirola.

Some closing thoughts: This was our first contact with artistic roller skating, we attended a mix of morning and afternoon practice sessions as well as every evening session. We asked numerous questions of those spectators of different nationalities around us and we thank all of those people for their patience in dealing with our questions.

We had never expected to see an "Elvis" tribute wrapped-up in a roller skating programme and we were suitably impressed, unfortunately we know not who that particular artist was.

In closing we offer an image of two people who must have greeted every person who entered the building ~ the catering staff.

A truly memorable week.

Next years event is to be held in Nazare, Portugal 14~19 September 2009.