Thousands skate into Las Vegas roller derby convention

A woman with a small frame and blond hair made her way into the Westgate on Sunday morning, a pair of roller skates hanging over her shoulder and a fresh tattoo on her calf.

“The actual tattoo is my derby name,” Rose “Conquer Nut” Holdaway said. “They did good, didn’t they? It was only done yesterday.”

Her tattoo features a white ribbon bearing her roller derby name — derived from conkers (“a nasty kids’ game” played with horse chestnuts tied to strings, she said) — along with a skate and a rose.

Holdaway, 59, flew to Las Vegas from Geraldton, Australia, starting Tuesday and had competed in eight scrimmages by the time the RollerCon roller derby convention was winding down Sunday. She was on the winning team about half the time, she said.

“What better souvenir?” Holdaway said of her tattoo. “There isn’t any!”

Holdaway said she got involved in roller derby in 2016 because she wanted to close out her 50s with an adventure. While in Las Vegas this week, she met a group from New Zealand and joined its over-40 scrimmage team, the Prime Cuts.

“This is a bucket-list year because I turn 60 in September,” Holdaway said. “I’m trying to check off as many things as possible.”

Roller derby was not the most convenient option. She lives five hours north of Perth, a larger city isolated from the rest of the country on Australia’s west coast, so her team must travel that far to compete. The next-closest bouts are 12 hours away, she said.

The distance does not deter her, however.

“What a good thing to do for your 60th year,” Holdaway said. “Most people will go and see the Golden Gate Bridge, or, you know, it’s usually travel adventures and things like that. They don’t go play roller derby.”

The sport appeals to people of many ages and sizes, said RollerCon sponsorship manager Robin Watterworth, 40. Her derby name, “Wanda Gogh?” sounds like an invitation to fight when said quickly.

“It’s the best nonsport that you can do because it’s a lot of work from grassroots levels and accepts all body types,” she said. “Every single body type can be useful on the track. It’s a very empowering sport for women, especially, to be in.”

About 4,000 people, at least 70 percent of whom were women, attended this year’s convention, Watterworth said. Attendees competed in dozens of themed scrimmages each day.

Mabel Vautravers, 24, who goes by “Toxic Haste” on the track, started skating on a junior team at age 16. Now Vautravers plays for the Rose City Rollers’ Wheels of Justice, the No. 2 team in its league in Portland, Oregon.

Roller derby offered a sense of community, Vautravers said.

“There aren’t a lot of scenes that young queer kids can access,” Vautravers said. “Let alone active or athletic ones.”

Vautravers drove into Las Vegas on Wednesday with teammate and friend Alexis Dasaro, aka “Beyond ThunderDame” or just “Dame.” Dasaro, 33, started playing in New Orleans at age 28.

“For me it was about a similar thing: finding a strong, open-minded, but also really tough group of people that wanted to really challenge themselves,” Dasaro said. She moved to Portland in 2016 to join a more competitive team.

Dasaro likes roller derby because of the “do-it-yourself aesthetic.” Dasaro shouted out the Las Vegas teams — the Atomic Rollergirls and the Fabulous Sin City Rollergirls — and encouraged women interested in roller derby to seek them out.

“It’s so new and accessible to so many people, and it’s a peer-created sport,” she said. “Yeah, there’s this governing body, but it’s all peer skaters, people who were skaters, so it’s kind of by the skater, for the skater.”

Because it is a contact sport on skates, injuries are common. Dasaro broke her leg in February and was back on skates after four months, she said. A 6-inch scar is visible by her ankle.

RollerCon offered classes during the five-day convention to help skaters avoid injury and hone their skills. Sunday’s classes included “The Lazy Skater’s Guide to Exercise,” “Butt Stuff” (teaching newer skaters how to use the muscles in their lower body) and “Basics of Agility.”

Instructor Sara “Daft Spunk” Sather broke her leg in 2012 and was back on her skates in five weeks, she said. She also has friends who suffered concussions and had to stop playing.

“I’m old, and I’ve been playing a long time,” said Sather, 37. “I don’t want to be injured, and I don’t want newer skaters to feel like it’s a badge of honor. It’s something we want to prevent.”

RollerCon will return to Las Vegas in July 2019.

Contact Kimber Laux at klaux@reviewjournal.com. Follow @lauxkimber on Twitter.