Birth date: June 29, 1982

Place: Paris

In the Rollerblade team since: 2009

Best results: 1^st in Paris (2004), South Korea (2004) and Moscow (2009).

Best contest: Paris

Favorite music: hip hop, soul, jazz

Favorite movies director: Spike Lee

Where would you like to go for holydays? I often travel to India to take pictures, but also for holydays!

“I learnt to practice urban skating in the streets of Paris: this is my playground. The spots I prefer are the Champs-Elysées and the Quartier Latin.” There are many other great spots in Paris, though. This capital is one of the biggest playgrounds! The traffic is intensive, the crowd is heavy and the structures are various. “I know the city very well. I foresee what the people will do and how the drivers are driving their cars or their buses. When I am skating, everything goes slower. Everything is under control. But I have to be sharply aware.” Greg has been living in Paris for 10 years now. He is initially a street skater (since 1995), who also decided to get involved in urban skating with a lot of success.

“I practiced in other cities, such as Barcelona, Lausanne or London. It is true that things are different according to the place where you skate: you have to learn quite fast what the people’s reactions are.” But Greg loves that kind of thrill. There is no screen play and each run is a single one. Urban skating is an art, but it is also a sport: you must be able to skate fast, from one point to another, to move on your right, on your left, and sometimes to stop instantaneously. “You never know what will happen. That is why sometimes, you must stop very, very fast! That should be one limit to that sport: you have to be in a very good shape to practice…”

Urban skating is a young and free discipline. Pedestrians, bus and car drivers can be amazed, but also upset when you are skating around. “I am a diplomat, Greg explains. I sometimes have to negotiate to explain that I am not an enemy. Most of the time, things are going well, fortunately!” But it also depends on the city: Greg confesses that the most beautiful places are Paris and Barcelona, where he produced a lot of videos.

“In the past, we tried to organize some contests all over the world. We traveled in Switzerland, in South Korea or in Moscow. The goal was to show our sport to people. We were running some blader cross contest on limited areas, from quarter finals to the final.” But the truth is that urban skating is a totally free sport, and quite an individual one. Most of the time, Greg is riding alone or with few friends. He takes inspiration from the “Parkour”, another urban movement. Finally, the essence of urban riding is to set a starting point. What happens afterwards? The answer is in your skates!