Dundee go to Nantes 2019
It's been an exciting few years for Dundee Roller Derby, amongst rebranding and renaming, an increasing number of international fixtures, and regular British Championships attendance.
The team are continuing their onward trend by attending their second tournament in France, the 7th edition of Nantes' West Track Story this weekend (20th-21st April)
West Track Story 7 will see 5 WFTDA teams compete in a full round-robin tournament for a total of 10 games. As with previous years, the event is truly international, with each team representing a different country.
- Munich Rolling Rebels representing Germany (WFTDA rating 96.52, FTS Global 552.6)
- Namur Roller Girls representing Belgium (WFTDA rating 123.31, FTS Global 648.3)
- Zurich City Roller Derby representing Switzerland (WFTDA rating 152.73, FTS Global 629.7)
and, of course, the hosts
- Nantes Derby Girls representing France, (WFTDA rating 185.91, FTS Global 617.3)
in addition to Dundee (WFTDA rating 101.41, FTS Global 590.9) .
(The total "strength ratio", the ratio of predicted scores between the highest and lowest rated, for the attending teams is about 3 by WFTDA, or 2 by FTS Global ratings.)
Glasgow Roller Derby attended a previous West Track Story (the 5th edition, in 2017), so this could be seen as becoming almost a Scottish tradition.
The Silvery Tayzers have not played any of the other teams in the tournament before and coming in as underdogs, near the bottom of the rating range, will be wanting to prove themselves with some upsets. That said, the ratings from FTS and WFTDA disagree about both the absolute rankings, and the relative ratings of all the attendees, so there is a lot to play for, statistically.
Dundee have already played one game this season, a tense down-to-the-wire away game against Brighton Rockers, which they won by a single point. Their closest opponent, Munich, has yet to play this season, so it's hard to tell their form this season; playing your first games in the season in a sanctioned tournament can be a risk. (Hosts Nantes, thanks to the Championnat de France season; Zurich, thanks to already attending a tournament this year; and Namur already have multiple games under their belts in 2019, and will definitely be warmed up for the ecent.)
Co-Captain G-Wrecks told us, "We are incredibly excited to be a part of such a well known tournament. It is going to be an amazing challenge for us, but we have been working so hard together as a team to get us ready!"
At present, we do not know if West Track Story 7 will be streamed (the team providing streams in previous years is not available), but you can follow scores on the Facebook event, and, of course, on Flat Track Stats .