Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Shane Badman featured in major Swedish newspaper!

Colony rider Shane Badman has been living the life in Sweden for a while now. While flatland is not huge in the country, the interest for it is definitely there. Recently Shane got asked to do an interview for one of the major Swedish newspapers, Sydsvenskan (South Sweden). Here's how it came about....

I was riding at my local spot in a small village called Staffanstorp in the far south of Sweden. Randomly a couple of people came up to talk, interested in what I was doing. One was a journalist, the other a photographer: they had seen me here practising regularly & were curious to know more about the sport & myself.

So we sat down & went through some details about myself, my riding history & flatland followed by a quick photo shoot. Their plan was to do a full page spread in the Sydsvenskan paper that would be released over the next few days.

A few days go by & I get a message to give the journalist a call. After a short conversion, the word is they would like to do a little more than just a paper interview - but do something for the web too. Great! We scheduled to meet the following the following Monday at their studios in Malmo.

10am Monday arrived quickly. I was welcomed & introduced to the "video guy" & "another photographer" saying they would be with me for the next few hours. The plan was to get a few clips riding & few photos on site.

Riding outdoors in Sweden can be tricky business. I love the country, the people & everything about it, but the weather can make life tough. Even in the middle of summer it can be sunny one moment & raining the next. And the wind.... whoa - if you own a wind farm I imagine you'd be doing pretty well. So we headed down to a place I'd been a few weeks earlier & though thankfully it wasn't raining, the wind was making up for it. We filmed a few things, talked a little bit & headed back to get the photos done.

So after a few short hours since walking through their door I was thanked for my time & advised the final product would be available in the next 24 hours.

And here it is:

You can read the translated article by clicking here.

The short web vid is found here.


And the article was also printed in the daily newspaper - full page no less!!

So a massive thank you to everyone who has made my stay in Sweden an amazing experience. Though I'm leaving in less than a week I'll always remember my time here & the close friends that I've made.

See you all soon!!!

3 comments:

  1. Pretty damm amazing!

    ReplyDelete
  2. hey shane!
    my name is navid saleki, i ride in gother´nburg at the moment, maby we could hook up and ride!!!
    my mail is kingofnorth@hotmail.com

    ReplyDelete