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 CHAMPION
ROLLERSKATER JAYSON SUTCLIFFE BECAME ‘SEX ON WHEELS’ WHEN
HE BARED ALL FOR A LITTLE
ROLLERBOOGIE
DOWN A BUSY CITY STREET FOR BLUE. AFTER 17 YEARS OF
COMPETITION, HE TELLS BRAD JOHNSTON, HE’S STARTING TO
CHALLENGE ALL SORTS OF TRADITIONS..
“They
were blue and yellow with big yellow wheels and kind of suede,
and a yellow stripe down the side.” Jayson Sutcliffe is
describing his very first pair of roller-skates, and his tone
suggest they could very well be in a display cabinet somewhere
in the family home.
He
discovered them at the age of 12 in a cousin’s shed in
Warrnambool, an Australian town not usually noted for its
hidden treasure. After rescuing them from a life of neglect
and taking them to a skating rink in his hometown of
Melbourne, it was less than a year before Sutcliffe held the
National Freeskating title, the first of many. Clearly, this
was a serendipitous fashion find.
Of
course, it was 1982 when a pari of garishly hued skates could
be considered fashionable. Only two years before, Olivia
Newton-John had convinced Gene Kelly to roll his way through
Xanadu. Cliff Richard had only just stopped reminding the
world that despite his age, he wheely was wired for sound. And
throughout Australian suburbia, children and adults alike
devoted their spare time at local rinks to interpreting the
Top 40 while trying to avoid permanent injury. A Golden Age,
you might say.
These
days, you would be forgiven for thinking that this era is well
and truly over. In-Line extremity has seized the public’s
imagination, and today’s youth would probably view
Sutcliffe’s original wheels as a quaint artifact. However,
there is still an arena where “quads” rule, an
international stage upon which in-line skates are about as
useful as a broken shoelace. Yes, in world level Artistic
Roller Skating, there are certain traditions, although as
Sutcliffe has discovered after 17years in competition, not all
of them are worth upholding.
 Having
just returned from the National Championships on Australia’s
Gold Coast, his first after a three year hiatus, Sutcliffe
explains that as a 29year-old veteran, there are some
regulations he no longer feels obliged to follow. “Last week
on the Gold Coast I seemed to be encountering a few
problems,” he recalls. “I was getting penalties for what I
was wearing. Traditionally, men would wear pants with the
flared bottom that attached to the skates, but I just started
wearing tights, like a cyclist. And before I went on I was
being pulled aside by the referee and being told that if I wore
them I’d get a one-point penalty: ‘You know, you’re not
going to make the team if you wear that sort of stuff.’
I’m like, ‘Yeah, I’ll take that chance.’ ”
Shades
of Strictly Ballroom, perhaps? Sutcliffe concurs with a laugh.
“Any skater could probably relate to that movie because
it’s not that different,” he says.
“All the mums and kids in a dance school… there’s
that pettiness all the time. There’s always competition on
and off [the rink]. It’s hard to be relaxed in that sort of
atmosphere, ‘cause there’s always a lot of tension.
“You
have six hours of training to music each day and you train
with two or three countries, and it’s just mind games the
whole time. He does something, you do it. If he does something
better, you try to outdo that. It’s just ongoing.
It
sounds like the competitive Artistic Roller Skating circuit is
cinema’s next camp classic waiting to happen, but
Sutcliffe’s achievements should not be trivialized. He held
the title of National Champion every year from 1982 – 1996,
and took Double Gold World Championship honors in Colombia in
1995. That year, he was also nominated as the Sport Australia
Male Athlete Of The Year, while numerous television
appearances have kept hi well-tuned torso on the periphery of
public consciousness. However, compared to the attention he
receives in other countries, local media interest is low.
“It’s
strange,” he says, “because when we go to a European city
or a country in South America it’s always front page news
and we find ourselves splashed across the papers. You’d wake
up each morning and be like ‘Who’s in the paper today?’
whereas back here you’re lucky to find a clipping the size
of a death notice.”
 Perhaps
now is a good time to explain exactly what Artistic Roller
Skating is, Sutcliffe has his own succinct description.
Apparently, if you were watching, say, Torvill and Dean and
you “didn’t look at their feet, there’s no
difference”. As in ice skating, there are individual and
pairs events, short and long programs scored for the technical
and artistic merit. Sutcliffe concedes that his very first
effort had little of either.
“It
was really shocking,” he laughs. “I remember the coach
gave me the music, that song ‘Delilah’. It was only
instrumental, but I remember hating it at the time. After that
I progressed to Elton John’s ‘Funeral For A
Friend’. Back in `82 that was a big thing.”
After
his first international appearances in 1985, Sutcliffe
continued to climb up the ranks and by 1990 he had reached
World No 2. The following year, the death of his brother
precipitated a fall in form, but he soon regained momentum,
winning top accolades a few years later. A disappointing
performance in 1996 led to “time out”, as he calls it, but
now Sutcliffe's ready to, well, roll once more. And it is his
more relaxed attitude towards the sport’s niggling details
that seems to be affording him the energy to do so.
 When
asked to recall his favorite roller moment, it’s not the
major accomplishments that come to mind. “Winning [the World
Championship] is obviously up there,” he says, “but I
don’t think it was an all-time high because I didn’t
really perform at optimum level. I sort of felt like the best
of a bad bunch. I’d say that last week on the Gold Coast was
one of the best I’ve had. It was the most I’ve really
enjoyed it. I knew I was going to be hammered by the judges
and I just did it for me – this is what I’m wearing, this
is what I’m comfortable in and I’m just going out there. I
really got a kick out of it.”
It
would appear that his photo shoot for blue gave him a
similar buzz. When asked how it went, Sutcliffe’s voice
rings with a combination of mischief and disbelief. Suffice to
say, skating nude along Sydney’s perpetually busy Cleveland
Street was a first. So was being threatened with a charge of
public indecency.
“During
the last shot the police happened to sport me, so I skated off
in to a shop,” he laughs. After a brief dressing down, so to
speak, from two officers trying to suppress the giggles,
Sutcliffe was free to go.
So
does he expect his latest appearance to cause ripples through
the competition circuit? “Yeah, I hope so,” he laughs.
“I think I’ll take a few copies with me.”
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