After some problems with the use of the official venues during last few weeks, yesterday was the first day for the teams to roll into the new Inline Skating Complex for the 2007 CIC World Championships that will start on August 17th.

Kalon Dobbin and his small group of New Zealanders were the first to arrive in Cali twelve days ago but they were only given permission as of yesterday to skate on the new track, Some problems of authorization by the Construction Company and the Governement of Cali prevented to the athletes from using the new venues. This situation among others affected were: the Chilean superstar Catherine Peñan and the Belgian Wouter Hebbrecht.

Six nations are already skating in Cali. The excitement is mounting. Adding to the team from New Zealand are the teams from Chile, Belgium, Australia, El Salvador and Guatemala.

The main stars, including Kalon Dobbin, Shane Dobbin, Wouter Hebbrecht and Catherine Peñan are just part of a group of skaters who are testing the track and their wheels to get a ‘feel’ for the “sweet spots” that are often the difference between a podium finísh, or not. Each track has it’s own special way of being used and skated on. It is often the skater who knows the track best who can gain an advantage from reading the track correctly. The skater who knows when to go high and when to fly off the radius of the track, can gain valuable distances on their oponents. Also, some Central American countries like Guatemala and El Salvador promise to show a good results from their junior skaters.

From this coming Wednesday, we will see the start of the official training for the fifity plus teams, who will be in Cali 2007. The organization has a program of 167 hours of training time for the teams until August 18th when the 300 M Time Trial will take place, opening the competitions at the 200 M track recently opened.