Blood and fury as Australia eyes roller Cup

The Sydney Assassins team

Helmets, mouthguards and knee pads in place, the Sydney Assassins sweat through a gruelling drill of twists, blocks and thrusts, equal parts balletic and brutal.
They’re a close-knit team, but roller derby is no ordinary sport – an exclusively female cross between speed skating and dodgems.
The premise is simple: two teams of five rollerskate around a circuit with one player from each, a “jammer”, trying to get from the back of the pack to the front, scoring points for each player on the opposing team they pass.
The others, “blockers”, do everything in their power to stop the opposing team’s jammer getting through while protecting their own, and it isn’t pretty.
“The girls who play roller derby don’t really care about getting injured, it’s a not a sport for girls who like to sit on the sidelines,” explains Haterade, one of the team’s elite members.
Like other players, she goes by her skater name – a tongue-in-cheek moniker often based on word play or innuendo.
“I think that’s why it really has taken off, because women in 2011, we’re really independent and there’s nothing wrong with being aggressive, there’s nothing wrong with playing a full-contact sport.”
A deft shove sends one player flying, her forehead audibly smacking the polished wooden floor. Ice is proffered and she sits for a moment, dazed.
Players are regularly cut down and bruises are par for the course, according to Thigh-dal Wave, one of the sport’s founders in Sydney back in 2007, who retired to coach after breaking her tailbone.
“I would say most skaters have sustained some sort of injury as a part of roller derby. Sprains and fractures, there’s a lot of that,” she tells AFP.
“They’re a badge of honour,” adds player Apollonia Thunderpussy. “It’s probably the only sport where people take pictures of their bruises and email their friends.”
Roller derby started in 1920s America and is having an explosive renaissance in Australia, with almost 100 leagues springing up in just four years.
It is as much subculture as sport but the women take it seriously, and with reason. They’re eyeing the inaugural Roller Derby World Cup.
Haterade will compete in Toronto in the first week in December as part of Team Australia, one of 13 nations vying for the world title, something she says is testament to the sport’s “explosive” global growth in the past decade.

Sydney Assassins roller derby member known as Haterade in Sydney

“We won’t be last. We won’t be first. I’m sure we’ll be somewhere probably in the middle,” she tells AFP after a punishing session on the skates.
“For the girls we have two goals. One is to play USA, because they’re just incredible and the girls that we all watch all the time and learn so much from.
“And we really want to beat the Kiwis,” she added, referring to arch-rivals New Zealand.
The Assassins, a select squad of Sydney’s best players who train up to four nights a week, are preparing for their final bout of the season, a grudge match against New Zealand’s Wellington Richter City.
The rule book is complex and extensive – running to some 40-plus pages – and its all about skill and technique, with neophyte “fresh meat” players required to graduate through four exams before reaching draft level.
They are drilled in skills including turns, stops, blocks and sprints, and have extensive training in how to fall: “small” and without risking their fingers, limbs or other players.
It is a sport by women, for women, and that is what makes it so appealing according to Thigh-dal, who says derby girls “kick arse by day and kick arse by night”.
“There’s not really such a thing as men’s roller derby and we’re not the wussy afterthought of a men’s sport, which is basically what every other women’s sport is,” she says.
“There’s not really anything else going on in women’s sport which is combining community and kicking arse and lots of friends, and getting really athletic while you’re at,” Thigh-dal adds.

Roller derby teams in action in Sydney

Choosing a name is a rite of passage in derby culture, extending even to referees and officials, and there is an international register to ensure there is no doubling up on the pseudonyms, which range from cheeky to caustic.
Bambi von Smash’er, joining Haterade in Toronto as part of Team Australia, said the theatrics were an important part of the derby, but it was first and foremost a high-stakes sport.
“Yes, we wear awesome, arse-flashing outfits, but we also train very hard and we’re athletes, and we’re fit and out there doing something that is very sports newsworthy,” she said.
There was a “certain amount of terror and a certain amount of excitement” about heading to the World Cup but Smash’er said she was excited about meeting Team America, home to the sport’s best talent.
England and the USA will be the teams to beat, and Europe is heavily represented with squads from Sweden, Finland, Germany, Scotland, Ireland and France. Brazil, Argentina and Canada round out the Americas.
Australia is the only team from the Asia-Pacific but Thigh-dal believes it is only a matter of time before it is joined by South Korea or Singapore, which both have their own local leagues.
“It’s going to be very interesting, really tough and very exciting,” says Smash’er of the Cup. “Because I love a good game when the chips are down.”

AFP