The 2009 Senior Figure World Championships are officially started at the Messe Freiburg Convention Center in Freiburg, Germany. Join me at the events via Rollersports TV by registering and activating your account. Then view the streaming video schedule to find the events you want to see.

Great moments are shared at competitions, sometimes due to a little trauma. The floor conditions were good, no one got sick and thank goodness there were no injuries. But, when Courtney Donovan damaged an inline wheel at her practice for the Inline Ladies Singles event and didn't have a matching spare, her coach, Rene Johnson, and her mom were in a bit of a panic. Vivian Moreira came to the rescue and helped connect Courtney's mom with one of her Brazilian teammates who had a spare wheel and was willing to give it to Courtney in time to skate her event. Way to go Team Brazil!

If all roller sports athletes and countries can show this level of excellent sportsmanship towards their competition, the goodwill alone will attract more skaters and build our sport.

The inline freeskating participants at the 2009 World Championship in Freiburg, Germany were low in numbers but good in quality. Hsin Chia-Ling (Taiwan) faced tough competition from Silvia Marangoni (Italy) and Natalie Motley (USA), but she won the Bronze which was her same placement in the 2008 World Championship in Taiwan. Vivian Moreira (Brazil) finished in 6th place.

Women's Inline Results

1. Silvia Marangoni, Italy
2. Natalie Motley, United States
3. Hsin Chia-Ling, Taiwan
4. Courtney Donovan, United States
5. Aleesha Hanczakowski, Australia
6. Vivian Moreira, Brazil
7. Chen, I-Ching, Taiwan
8. Laura McKenzie, New Zealand

Gustavo Casado (Brazil) regained the Gold Medal that he lost it last season by skating solid short and long programs. Eric Traonouez (France) skated an excellent long program which moved him up from 4th in his short program to the Silver Medal.

Men's Inline Results

1. Gustavo Casado De Melo, Brazil
2. Eric Traounez, France
3. Carlos Urquia, Argentina
4. Marco Viotto, Italy
5. Anup Kumar Yama, India
6. Diego Dores, Brazil
7. Lee Chun, Taiwan
8. Andrew Bassi, Australia

The next big inline figure skating event will be the Open International de Paris in January, 2010. Hopefully, many of the World competitors will support this event, hosted by Jean-Pierre Faugère, to increase their competitive experience and grow the inline figure sports.

If you have links to any of these or other inline figure skating events or performances in any discipline, feel free to send them via email for possible inclusion in the inlineskating site.

Whether they are the latest manufacturer's offerings or inline models that have been rolling around for a while, there are a variety of fitness and training level inline skates that are suitable for workouts, training and other recreational roller sports activities that are not discipline specific.

These fitness skates usually cost a little more than entry level recreational skates, but the extra features and upgrades are usually worth it.

Got great fitness skates? Tell us about your inline skate experience.