It was a challenge billed as the team's toughest yet and a historic moment for the Auld Reekie Roller Girls' All Stars team as they crossed the pond to compete in an international derby.

Flying the flag as the only UK team to have secured a place at The Big O Tournament in Oregon, the All Stars are the A team from the volunteer-run Auld Reekie Roller Girls (ARRG) league.

The sport, played on quad roller skates on an oval track, involves a series of two-minute 'jams' played over a one-hour period by two teams made up of four blockers and one jammer.

The jammers score points by successfully skating through the pack of blockers and can continue to race round the track attempting to lap the blockers, who play both offence and defence, until the two minutes us up.

The team, who jetted out from the capital last week, went out to the States with the ultimate goal of improving their international ranking.

But the Big O Tournament was about more than just number crunching, as three of the team explain in this special blog for STV.

Sophie Preston

Nickname: Temple of Doom

Age: 30

First got into the sport: July 2012

Position: Blocker

Love the sport because: Being part of an amazing, positive and ambitious team that aims high, competing and trying to beat your opponent physically, mentally and tactically.

America is big. It's the nation of super-size cokes, cars and characters. And the Big O tournament - that's a big deal, too.

After some last-minute redirected flights, an extra night in Amsterdam and a storm warning in Texas, the ARRG All Stars finally made it to Eugene in Oregon.

We were the lesser-known team from over the pond at one of the world's biggest derby events. As a tournament rookie, it seemed the key to getting the most out of this type of event is carving out your own space, setting clear aims and making the physical space your own so you don't get lost in the melee.

And that's what we've done. In the ARRG team area, we're kitting up next to the world's best teams but we've got our hand-stitched bunting up and we feel right at home.

We played our first game against Emerald City, the tournament hosts and a team who beat us last time we headed Stateside.

There was a palpable sense of excitement for the amazing weekend to come. With familiar surroundings, a home crowd, no jet lag and the predicted victors, Emerald had an initial psychological advantage.

It took a few minutes for us to put any points on the board with Emerald gaining a good lead and our adrenaline levels leading us into some penalty trouble.

But, by half time we'd closed the score to within ten points, and in the second half our aggressive calm was riling Emerald into a penalty spiral of their own.

Soon into the second half, we took the lead. At this point I took a breath, looked around and thought, 'I think I'm enjoying myself, I wasn't expecting this'.

Ultimately, Emerald edged ahead in the closing minutes of the game by eight points and winning 176-168.

Miriam Johnson

Nickname: MJ

Age: 32

First got into the sport: October 2012

Position: Jammer

Love the sport because: The 'teaminess' and the challenge of the sport.

After our first game with Emerald, we felt we could up our game and really push harder through the next few days to totally own the track.

Our next games were hard work. Windy City were a great team who used their size to their advantage and had excellent precision with their hits.

We had to up our aggression and play our own game, using star passes and swinging around people. It was a learning experience.

The hits of Windy were hard, and even though we lost 123-244, I felt totally prepared to take on the next challenge.

After a good sleep - never underestimate how much sleep is needed when playing derby - we went back to the venue for our late game against Sacred City.

Now, those were large players, but we, as jammers, could use it to our advantage. We could move left then right and manage to duck under them, as they were slower to move than we were. I loved that game.

But when the jammers are also that powerful, it's hard to hold them so our scoreline finish, which was a loss of 139 -261, didn't reflect our playing. We left feeling like we played our game.

For the final day, we had a midday game and we were ready. We came early to watch Santa Cruz play against Emerald and got a few ideas of how we were going to play.

When we played them, it was hard. Our jammer styles worked for the most part, but we, as jammers, got into some penalty trouble which we had to get through mentally.

They were a lovely team to play, friendly and powerful and, on the day, they won 113 to 259 but I am 100% confident that if we had a rematch, we would smash it.

The best part, aside from the learning experience, was the fact that we even had our own little fan group from home.

Shiv and Nick came along from Edinburgh, making signs signs and lots of noise. We do have the best fans, after all.

Gemma Oversby

Nickname: DeeDee

Age : 36

First got into the sport: May 2011

Position: Line-up manager

Love the sport because: The camaraderie, working hard to achieve great things together, being able to forget everything that is going on in life and focus on being at practice with my pals.

Wow, what an intense week. This is my second time at the Big O Tournament and my first as our line-up manager, meaning I was tasked with putting lines of five skaters on track for every jam.

It's so inspiring to see awesome athletes performing at their best and we've learnt a lot. We came to America to play our best, move up the rankings and to get new experiences to take back to our pals in Scotland.

We were nervous but everyone brought their best, feeding off the excellent support from our fans that travelled over and the constant messages from home.

We played four tough and aggressive American teams and held our own. They hit our players hard, tried to get into our heads and brought out all their tricks to try and make us lose our cool.

Adrenaline and emotions were high but despite all that, we totally smashed the predictions and are returning to the UK at number 44 in the world. A rank that should improve in June, which will hopefully mean we will get to this year's championship play-offs.

Naturally after all the excitement there was some celebration, complete with a magnum of fizz, awards and after-partying into the wee hours.

Now I'm sitting on a plane wishing we could do it all again next week, what a buzz.

So, what's next? Already we're planning out our training for a game against Kallio on June 11 in Edinburgh and some more games at this year's Fringe Festival.

There's also a lot of fundraising to do to ensure we can continue to operate and perform at an international standard. I can't wait to get going.

But first, some wine.