‘The Greatest Showman’ roller-skates to victory at GB champs

Wednesday 21 June 2023

A local teen has ‘knocked it out the rink’ to become British Champion in Artistic Rollerskating – despite the island's lack of spaces to train.

Les Quennevais student Perry Elias-Rees (15) triumphed in the ‘Men Cadets’ category at the GB Skate Artistic Championships held in Great Yarmouth earlier this month.

However, with no full-size rink in the island, Perry trained in the hall at Les Quennevais sport centre.

"There are not many skating facilities here at all," Perry said. "My coaches have tried to push for some, and we're always trying to make the sport more well known and spread its presence and popularity and get a proper large-scale skating rink. We've always been pitching building a new facility that has a larger rink we can use."

"The one at the competition was much larger than the hall I trained in, so it was quite weird and difficult to adjust to the different size."

He came to artistic rollerskating – i like figure-skating, but without the ice – "quite late", Perry told Express.

When he was in Year 6, his teacher at La Moye, Sasha Baker, who coaches at Regent Skating Club where Perry trains, suggested the sport to him.

He had not roller-skated before and started "completely from scratch".

"She mentioned the idea and I thought, 'Why not?' Ever since then, it's blossomed into a really big passion, and I spend hours each week doing this.

"Most people my age started before me, so it's been quite a lot of hard work to catch up to the other in the category, a lot of blood, sweat and tears. There are often times when you're working towards the championships where there's a lot of self-doubt."

"But the coaches are always there for you to rationalise any kind of worries that you have and help you to know what you're doing on the practical side."

"I went into it expecting nothing and just going for the experience."

"It was surreal to win, and an absolutely magical weekend. Even without winning it would have been an absolutely lovely atmosphere, but the title was the cherry on top of the cake."

Pictured: He attended the competition with his mother and "the whole Regent family".

What music to use for his Free Dance, Perry said, is a "collaborative decision" with coaches, but he went with a medley from 'The Greatest Showman' – which inspired his costume.

"With the free dance, it's about the personal connection to the music because half the points are for technique, but the other half is for musicality, performance, style, so it's important that you resonate with the music. That's why we chose it, because it's about self-acceptance and finding yourself, which is something I've struggled with, so it was great to skate and to tell my story."