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Years Skating Premiere a Great Success

Almost 5000 Skaters at the start of the BALISTO BLADE NIGHT in Berlin

2003-05-27

As the sun slowly dipped below the horizon, more and more capital city skaters began to fill the area across from the Soviet Monument not far from the Brandenburg Gate. BALISTO put on this years first BLADE NIGHT and 104.6 RTL Radio heated up the masses with funky beats. When Klaus Böger, the Senator for Sports, gave the symbolic starting shot by popping a balloon, nearly 5000 enthusiastic inline skaters started moving, accompanied by a friendly police escort.

Frank Effenberger, who is responsible for the new Berlin inline “happening“, saw his dream of reactivating night skating in Berlin come alive: “Almost 5,000 inline skaters at the premiere, that is a dream start—and we will double the numbers next time.“

After a short curve to the left into the Entlastungsstraße, Potsdamer Platz was reached. Many car drivers greeted the participants on 8 or 10 wheels with a happy honking concert (it simply wasn possible to pick out any angry faces) and certainly next Sunday many of them will trade in their steel frames for inline skates in order to be part of the next rolling train moving through the Berlin night.

They passed the city embassy district towards Kurfürstendamm and on down Bismarckstraße. The “Gold Else“ on top of the Victory Column cast her evening glow towards the skaters as they returned back toward the starting area—while some participants might have been in the mood for another round, one could also pick out relieved faces that the train was almost home.

At an average pace of 20 kph, this event offers room for all levels. The BLADE GUARDS did their job so well that one hardly heard a mean word either from the participants or from those affected by the closed roads. We can only hope that such a relaxed party atmosphere develops every Sunday evening and many more skaters find their way to the Brandenburg Gate for a NIGHT sightseeing tour through the true “skaters capital“.

BERLIN-MARATHON Race Director Horst Milde proudly watched the train of thousands of skaters along the way. Years ago he was already open to the new trend of INLINE SKATING and integrated the mass sport into the traditional BERLIN-MARATHON, HALF MARATHON and City Night on Kurfürstendamm.

Again this year, the thousands of skaters who will be participating in the upcoming BALISTO BLADE NIGHTS until September are also his potential participants. But until then, there will be 22 Sunday evenings where we can say “Streets clear for the night skaters of the BALISTO BLADE NIGHT“ !

The big real,- BERLIN-MARATHON for the skaters will take part on Saturday 27 th with about 10.000 skaters and more.

Mike Saft

Further interesting NEWS about the BBN can be found at : www.skate-night-berlin.de