roller derby

Roller Derby is one of the latest sports to be integrated into the French Roller and Skateboard Federation. Coming from the United States, this sport has quickly conquered many practitioners in France. Very tactical, Roller Derby combines both speed and contact, all in a friendly atmosphere.

Birth of Roller Derby

Roller Derby is played on quads (non-inline skates). It was born in the midst of the Great Depression, in 1929, in Chicago, when its inventor, promoter Leo Seltzer, had the idea of simulating a Los Angeles/New York marathon under the eye of the cameras on a circular, covered track. Teams of one man and one woman had to complete no less than 57,000 laps.

 The participants were so caught up in the game that they ended up pushing each other to win the race, which lasted for hours. Leo Seltzer saw immediately that the interest of the race lay in the confrontations it generated. It was an immediate success, with almost 20,000 spectators in the first week. It was then that roller derby became an object of American popular culture and clubs flourished throughout North America.

 After a very successful period, even reaching France in 1936, under the name of roller catch, roller derby lost its notoriety in the 1980s, notably because of suspicions of cheating and the overly showy and wrestling aspect of the sport.

 Relaunched in 2000 in Texas, contemporary roller derby is now an international sport with predominantly female teams in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Switzerland, Sweden, the United Kingdom and of course France. There are also men's teams, but in a smaller proportion than women's teams. The vast majority of roller derby clubs follow the official rules established by the WFTDA (Women's Flat Track Derby Association) and the MRDA (Men's Roller Derby Association)

The Rules*

The game is played on a 30m x 16m oval track**. A match consists of two 30-minute halves. A half is divided into sub-periods, called jams, of a maximum duration of 2 minutes; between two jams, there is a 30-second period during which the teams are allowed to change the players sent onto the field. In total, a team can have up to 15 players on a match sheet.

The game

On the field, 10 players compete, each team consisting of 1 jammer (wearing a cover with a star) and 4 blockers (including one pivot wearing a cover marked with a stripe)

The principle is simple: the blockers of both teams must stay together in a pack, moving at a modest pace around the track. The jammers have to pass the pack as many times as possible by doing laps of the track. Each time a jammer passes an opponent (by taking a lap) without making a mistake, he or she wins a point for the team. The team with the most points at the end of the two halves wins the match. The role of the blockers is to prevent the opposing jammer from overtaking them while facilitating the passage of their own jammer through the pack.

To do this, contact, called blocking, is allowed but regulated:

It is allowed to block an opponent with any part of the body between the shoulders and mid-thighs, except the elbows, forearms and hands.

It is forbidden to strike an opponent below the mid-thighs, above the shoulders and on the back.

Initial Passage

At each jam, the first time a woman passes through the pack, she does not score a point. The first one to pass through the pack in the right way gets the status of lead jammer. She can then call the end of the jam whenever she wants before the two minutes are up, by repeatedly tapping her hips with her hands.

The status of lead jammer is extremely important since it allows the jammer who has obtained it, by ending the jam at the right moment, to prevent any gain of points by the opposing team.

Penalties

The game itself is highly regulated; the following actions are prohibited and therefore penalised:

- Illegal blocking (see above)

- Blocking outside the boundaries of the track,

- Doubling from outside the track,

- Blocking in the opposite direction of play,

- Linking with other players to prevent an opponent from passing...

Depending on the seriousness of the fault, the player will be sanctioned by a 30-second prison sentence. A serious offence or too many times in jail can lead to the exclusion of a player.

Refereeing

The content of the rules and the speed of the game make roller derby a complex sport to referee. The team of officials supervising a match is equal to the stakes: no less than 7 skating officials (SO) and 11 non-skating officials (NSO) are needed!

The role of the SOs is to ensure that the match runs smoothly, i.e. to ensure safety, to whistle for penalties committed by the players and to count the points scored by the jammers. The indispensable NSOs monitor the match by keeping track of the clock, the jail, penalties and scores, etc.

* these are just the basics - the rules are more complex but the aim here is to show you some basics

** it is a conversion of measurements into feet

Source: https://ffroller-skateboard.fr/les-disciplines/roller_derby/ with some modifications