Former pro-skater falls in love with Philippines

CEBU, Philippines — More than its natural beauty and food, the Filipinos’ hospitality and ability to celebrate life amidst all challenges made a well-travelled foreign personality fall in love with the Philippines.

He’s been to around 70 countries around the world, yet this former world-class short-track speed skater, entrepreneur, pilot, and travel journalist Austrian Matthias Stelzmüller easily picks this country as among his top three best travel experiences to date for its hospitality that “exceeds everything”. The other two top countries being Iceland and Kenya.

From a controlled environment under an ice-skating rink, Stelzmüller explored the “outside” world with his inline skates that eventually paved the way to his project “Skate the World”.

In an exclusive interview with The FREEMAN, Stelzmüller said he started out with inline skating, also known roller blading, until he shifted to speed skating.

Following his retirement after 14 years of dedicating his life to competitions from nationals to world championships using inline skating for cross-training, Stelzmüller brought his skates with him to his travels, using them as a means of transportation.

“When I was traveling around, I always had my inline skates with me… And it’s the best way to visit a country and to see it from more real perspective because usually when you're a tourist, you go to site A, site B, site C and you skip everything in between... So usually people skip the real life and they actually don't get to see a country how it really is with the real character. So this is why the skates gave me a different perspective on the world,” Stelzmüller said.

Although he had been to numerous countries around Asia, Stelzmüller only got to visit the Philippines for the first time last March while working on a cruise.

And what he saw and experienced was opposite of what many in Europe and elsewhere thought the Philippines is, from being perceived as a dangerous country due to calamities and terrorism to being welcoming and friendly.

After experiencing the warmth of the people of Coron, Stelzmüller thought of returning to the country again for his pilot project of promoting inline skating as a mode of transportation, hobby, and a sport.

Local inline skater Ian Arnoco then reached out Stelzmüller, that eventually led the latter to go to Cebu were he also got to meet Sunshine Lim and the rest of the management of the Sto. Niño Mactan Montessori School, Inc. in Lapu-Lapu City.

Meeting Lim and her team had even given Stelzmüller a better feel of Filipino hospitality.

“The most memorable thing for sure is how friendly and generous people are (in the Philippines) and we have seen nothing like that. Everybody is so friendly, so helpful,” he added.

As a travel journalist, Stelzmüller said, he hopes to also attract more people from Austria and Europe to also go to the Philippines where Filipinos know how to celebrate life through the good and bad times.

He said Europeans can learn a lot from Filipinos.

“The Philippines knows how to celebrate life even though it’s hard sometimes, and that is something we could learn a lot in Europe because even though everybody has a quite high status of living, like everybody has food, nobody starving, has a good home… and still people are definitely not as happy as here. So this is something we can learn a lot from,” stressed Stelzmüller.

Stelzmüller already has his schedule for next year set for other countries, but said he is definitely coming back to the Philippines to train kids on inline skating, do some competitions, organize the group here and hopefully influence more people to use inline skates as active transportation, and appreciate life even better.

“I would love to live in a world in the future that is less afraid…And the good thing is we are doing sports, you do things, you're maybe frightened in the first place, but when you do them more often, and often, and you get used to it, you also lose fear… A world without fear would be great, or at least less fear,” Stelzmüller said. — (FREEMAN)