Tess Jongepier Interview

Recently Australia was visited by Tess Jongepier from Amsterdam who traveled around the country skating, making friends and soaking up the Aussie culture. Anyone who met Tess on her travels would agree that she is a great person and excellent skater. Tess has been a major influence on the Dutch skating scene since its conception and is a well respected skater throughout Europe. On a recent trip to Europe I caught up with Tess in Amsterdam and skated her local parks. I asked Tess some questions about herself and the Europe skate scene and here's what she had to say:

DaKlinic.Com: What is your full name?
Tess Jongepier: Tess Jongepier.

DaKlinic.Com: Where do you live?
Tess Jongepier: Amsterdam, Holland.

DaKlinic.Com: How many years have you been skating?
Tess Jongepier: I started when I was 17 so almost 9 years.

DaKlinic.Com: What is it like living in Amsterdam?
Tess Jongepier: Winters are cold! But it's a cool city with always somewhere to Go or something to do.

DaKlinic.Com: What is your favorite type of skating? (vert, bowls, street) Why?
Tess Jongepier: I used to skate vert a lot and i had a pretty good vert ramp close to where i live. All of a sudden everyone gave up vert skating. An indoor park with two smooth bowls was built in Zandvoort and i started skating at that skate park. I learnt bowl skating at Zandvoort and now i love it. You can get a lot of speed in a bowl and grind really fast. That's so much fun!

DaKlinic.Com: Are you currently sponsored by anyone? Who?
Tess Jongepier: Not really I used to skate for USD but I haven't contacted them for a while, cause I don't really care about a sponsorship anymore, I just skate for fun.

DaKlinic.Com: What is the skating scene like in Holland at the moment?
Tess Jongepier: Skating is a bit boring at the moment. All the people I used to skate with don't skate anymore. There are a lot of street skaters though, but I am not really into that.

DaKlinic.Com: What is skating like across Europe at the moment? What is more popular inline or skateboard?
Tess Jongepier: Skateboarding is still more popular, but they are both still underground sports and I think it will always be like that. We used to have a lot of indoor parks but a lot of them have been torn down recently, which is a shame. Everyone has started to skate on the streets again, which we can only do in summer due to the weather.

DaKlinic.Com: What skates are you riding at the moment?
Tess Jongepier: USD Brian Shima's, the ones USD gave me in Australia.

DaKlinic.Com: What is your favorite skate spot in the world?
Tess Jongepier: Skatefx in Adelaide...(haha) no, Zandvoort my hometown skate park, manly (Sydney) cause of the people who skate there and plywood playground (Adelaide) cause that's where I learnt a lot of new tricks!

DaKlinic.Com: What places have you visited and skated at?
Tess Jongepier: I have skated competitions in Lausanne / Switzerland, Birmingham/England, Belgium, Germany and Australia. We used to go to Belgium or Germany every weekend to skate. Now I mainly skate in Zandvoort.

DaKlinic.Com: If you were granted three wishes what would they be?
Tess Jongepier: 1.getting the opportunity to travel all around the world and to skate as many places as possible.
2. Build my own skate park.
3. Live in Australia after my travels.

DaKlinic.Com: What did you think of Australia and the people?
Tess Jongepier: It's the best place I have been so far. The people are so friendly everyone showed me around and took me to skate parks.

DaKlinic.Com: Do you have a favorite skater?
Tess Jongepier: Dustin Latimer

DaKlinic.Com: What is your best place in a skate comp result?
Tess Jongepier: 2 years ago I became national champion in Holland and a few years ago I got Fifth in the ISS Finals which were held in Amsterdam.

DaKlinic.Com: What kind of car do you drive?
Tess Jongepier: To drive you need a license.

DaKlinic.Com: Favorite food?
Tess Jongepier: Asian.

DaKlinic.Com: What do you do when you aren't skating?
Tess Jongepier: I work as a primary school teacher to save up for my next trip in February.

DaKlinic.Com: Do you have any advice for kids just starting out?
Tess Jongepier: Wear protection!!!!

DaKlinic.Com: You hurt your ankle recently, how is that going and how did you do it?
Tess Jongepier: I was skating the bowl in Zandvoort and somehow I fell doing a backside grind! Don't laugh... My foot got stuck behind the coping and I fell down......it happened 7 weeks ago and I still can't skate.

DaKlinic.Com: Are you planning to travel anywhere to skate soon?
Tess Jongepier: I am going to Asia in February. I am taking my skates but i am not going to skate that much cause I'm traveling by bike!

DaKlinic.Com: Well I would just like to thank Tess for taking the time to be interviewed by Da Klinic and thank Jeremy, Nicole and of course Tess for looking after me and showing me around Amsterdam. Cheers Jeff (JJ) Ottaway.

Tess Jongepier