I am Thomas Christopher Slager, I am from The Netherlands, I am 17 years old now.
Way back in the day when I was 10, my uncle had this old longboard, he gave it to me because I loved skateboarding, so whenever I could I went out with my grandparents or with my mom to the park I did laps arround the park on my longboard.
I did not knew what LDP was back then or that there was a whole LDP sport going on already, so I just kept doing those laps for fun.
Several years later, went to the Een Longboard Dag, and I was competing in the Radargun challenge, I came in third, and I was like wow that is so cool, next competition of that event was a sprint push race, I competed in that one as well with a backpack and a full-face helmet, couldn’t breath, but I won that one, so I was very happy with that, and I found something similar to my parklapracing, a few months later I competed in my first full longboard marathon, I came in first position and opened a hole between number 2 with a half lap, I was 15.
After that I started to organise my own longboard marathon, I called it Haagsche Longboard Marathon, I did this because the sport needed a kick in the air, and I wanted to compete in more marathons. I won that marathon.
That after summer I competed in my third marathon, and won it as well, in November I went to the 2013 Adrenalina Skateboard Marathon and I came in second place, Kiefer Dixon killed me that day….
In 2014 I wanted to brake the world-record that Paul Kent had in the half longboard marathon, so I started to train hard and organised a half Haagsche Longboard Marathon that time. I broke his record with 48.56 to 44.26, I was very happy with this and convinced myself to go on with this sport to break more world records.
At the end of 2014, I went to the Adrenalina Skateboard Marathon again, and this time I won it with a time of 1:34.02, that was my biggest victory ever, and now in 2015 I did a winter marathon which I barely won because my sugar level dropped when I was almost done, hard wind that day as well.
Recently, I started a new event which is called RACE DAY, this event will concentrate its discipline on sprint and will be organised in the spring and summer of 2015, and of course there will be a brand new Haagsche Longboard Marathon (half) again.
This was my story till now, I am aiming to be world record holder of all distance longboarding disciplines one day, that is my goal. My other goal, is to get LDP to be a olympic sport.
Another new thing is an initiative that I wanted to launch for a while now, it is a LDP athlete team of long distance longboarders all around the globe, the aim of this team is to get people to make their own team as well, and than help this sport to the next level. We are called the ROGUE team.
One other thing, that I MUST say, is that without the support of my sponsors.
Subsonic Skateboards
DONT-TRIP skateboards
Sanuk (shoes)
Ionic Flux (bearing cleaner/rusteater)
Seismic
I could not have done this, and of course my biggest support is my mom and sister, you 2 are giving me my strength, thank you for that, I love you all !!
Thanks for this Thomas, if you want the world to know about you and your skating as part of our ‘Rider Profile’ series, drop us a line.
SkateFurther 
Thomas is the craziest guy I know, he’s an insane longboarder and a great friend! I’m really proud to be able to say that I know him personally. Great job man, best of luck in the future! Echt top artikel man!
eat-sleep-train-race, wear a skin suit, shave your legs and increase speed via racing, same as inline speed skaters and ice skaters. Speed skating is speed skating. When 51 year old’s are fast , the sport is slow. Only club racing world wide with a dedicated focus to speed skating on a board will develop the sport. If you slide, trick , etc.. you are wasting time away from speed. Sven Kramer does not practice tricks. The riders at the tour de France focus on speed. WR marathon needs to be 1:28:15. Then the begging of fast will start. There is no club training nor racing in NYC. There continues to be a ridiculous focus on messenger outlaw races same as fix gear culture does. Has anyone ever seen a fix bike messenger win the tour de france? No Never. Has an inline aggressive skater eve won the world cup of inline? No never. I’ve been breathing this same drum for 6 years now. Takes ten seconds to shave legs and wear a lycra skin suit day in and day out and focus only in skating fast. When you all begin to be have exactly like inline and the field is dedicated and hungry as a unit to go and get fast then you can begin to get main stream fitness sponsors that want to support racing. AS long as IDSA is supporting garage races and pump races etc and not 100% on speed skateboarding and teaching switch kick world wide.. good luck to you all in 10 years you will be it the same place. Eat-Sleep-Train-Race.. this is the way the planet races everything.. period. Call me and I’ll skate with anyone. I do 200+ miles a week. I have more milage than any of you and I do it all out of NYC and sleep in my bed. I did it on a bike 350 miles a week and raced March to Oct at CatII on a Bike. People this is not mysterious , it is work , work to go fast and club racing and club training day in day out, week in week out, month in month out. This is not “culture” nor “family” nor anything but grass roots race development. It is done one way world wide. Or keep at it and see if you can add another 10 -1:38 Marathoners over the next 7 years. Oh gee.. that will be a sport to contend with. I love this sport, I gave it my all in 2011. The tribe took over and ok.. 6 years on where is the socks off racing with field sizes of 200 + world wide every month? Where? I am still fast and as long as that is the case, you aint’ got much.