Over 90 athletes, representing 11 Florida skating clubs, competed in the 2021 Sunshine State Games Artistic Roller Skating Championships, May 8-9, at the Semoran Skateway, in Casselberry.

Artistic Roller Skating is one of the original sports of the Sunshine State Games, dating back to 1980.

Over the two days of events, skaters from four years old to skaters in their 70’s, performed solo, in quartets and with teams in dance, figures, loops and free skate routines.

Among the notable performances were three members of the Folstein family, Sean (15), Sara (12) and Emma (8). The Folsteins combined to win nine medals. Sean (pictured in feature photo at top of article), who has been skating since the age of four, won five medals, three gold and two silver. He also served as a judge for several events.

Sara earned a pair of silver medals and Emma won two gold medals and had a fourth place finish.

The 2019 Sunshine State Games Athlete of the Year, Gabrielle Eskew, won gold medals in the World Skate Junior Women’s Figures and Senior Women’s Figures events. The World Skate classification events were the highest ranked competitions of the weekend, according to State Director David Hankerson.

Jessica Gaudy (pictured at right), of Melbourne’s Space Coast Skate Club, and a member of the 2016 USARS Roller Figure Skating Senior World Team from 2009-2010 and 2012-2019, won a gold medal in the World Skate Senior Women’s Solo Dance event with a score of 119.28. She also had three, top five finishes, at the 2011 Pan American Championships. Her mother, Marie, is a long-time coach of the Space Coast Skate Club and served as a judge at the Sunshine State Games.

To keep up with the technological advances of the sporting world, the 2021 Sunshine State Games Artistic Roller Skating Championships featured a new scoring system.
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The RollArt Scoring System, as implanted by the International Governing Body- WorldSkate, is a computerized program that judges skaters on point values. RollArt gives skaters real-time results, giving them immediate feedback on how they can maximize the point values in their routines.

“This system is usually only used in International-level Championships,” Hankerson said. “We used it for the first time on a state and regional level at the 2021 Sunshine State Games.”

For complete results CLICK HERE to view or download a pdf document of the full results.

Now in its 42nd year, the Sunshine State Games is the longest continually-running State Games in the U.S. The 2021 Games Calendar of Events continues through June. For more information about upcoming Sunshine State Games events, please visit https://sunshinestategames.com/all-sports-schedule/ or follow the Games on Facebook.

The 2021 Sunshine State Games is an annual program of the Florida Sports Foundation, a Division of Enterprise Florida, Inc., and presented in conjunction with Central Florida’s Polk County Sports Marketing, Clay County Tourism and Airstream Ventures and the Gainesviille Sports Commission.