The votes have arrived, Here's who wins the shares of the €‐€‧ade prize pool 5000!
Who won the best maneuver or combo categories? And what was the best video produced and the most stylish part? A few debutants in particular stood out during the tour this year?
How the winners were decided?
FPT Awards nominations 2022 were open until the last day of the 2022. Every windsurfer in the world was free to send their own clips, Maneuvers and nominations in all available categories. After registration closes, The evaluation process has begun. Each category was decided by 3 Separate juries, each with 1 I am voting in favour of the decision. In the Best Move categories (Men and Women), It was the audience that helped decide, getting one of those votes! The other two votes were carried out by the FPT expert jury and FPT Head Judge. All other categories were decided by: 1x FPT Judge Panel, 1x FPT Media Panel and 1x FPT Management Panel.
Due to the countless quality mailings, It was a difficult process. This has become even more evident with a series of extremely close to equal online public votes.! With more than 25.000 votes cast and FPT judges who spent sleepless nights analyzing every maneuver, The results have arrived!
The FPT would like to extend a huge thank you to its judges for all their hard work., and to the public for helping to decide!
Fanatic/Duotone Rookie of the Year Award
Fanatic and Duotone have always been at the forefront of supporting new Freestyle talents. With their Young Blood team, currently composed by Tijmen Meijer and Eugenio Marconi, aim to advance the future of freestyle by helping emerging talent around the world. This year they pledged to support the Freestyle Pro Tour's Rookie of the Year award by offering a board and rig., in addition to joining the prestigious team of emerging rippers!
A rookie is a person who competed in the Pro division of the Freestyle Pro Tour for the first time in the 2022. There have been several rookies this season and it's always nice to see some new faces on tour.! Mathias Vingaard (Starboard/Severne), Foivos Tsoupras (Fanatic/Duotone/Maui Ultra Fins), Pawel Kazmierczak (Starboard/Severne), Pawel Palichleb (Fanatic/Duotone) and Elena Dominick all made their first appearance and tried to prove themselves on the international arena. However, there was a rider who managed to impress FPT the most, Fanatic and Duotone. With its motivation, the quality of navigation and progression this year is Primus Sorling (Emerging Swedish-Kenyan freestyler) to receive the Fanatic/Duotone Rookie of the Year award!
Pilot with the best progress in 2022
The Most Improved Rider of Award 2022 goes to someone who impressed everyone by bursting onto the scene at the EFPT's summer opening event in Austria, taking an impressive 7th place and knocking down some big names along the way. Constantly improving its competitive sailing, the award goes to the Austrian Michi Czech (Severne)!
Stylemaster 2022
In addition to the new maneuvers is the addition of style that makes a freestyler. The Stylemaster award puts the spotlight on a rider who this year showed a unique style. This category was difficult to define, since the style was very subjective. With a series of quality nominations in the end it was only one sailor. With a consistent and very adaptive style, the Stylemaster Award goes to Adrien Bosson (Fanatic/Duotone/Maui Ultra Fins)!
The best new maneuver
The new category of best maneuver has caused some headaches! It's not every year that a completely new maneuver arrives, and sometimes it's not clear if anyone is really the first to do it. Most people would have expected Yentel Caers to (JP/NeilPryde) win this category with its crazy Double Air Burner, but after a while’ of detective work you can find a video of Hugo de Sousa performing the feat already in the 2016.
In the end it was Steven Van Broeckhoven (Starboard/GUNSAILS) to win the award for Best New Move with his Pushloop into Flaka shot in Dahab!
Best Female Maneuver
Obviously you don't need to perform a new maneuver to impress the freestyle world. There are many known maneuvers that deserve to be highlighted! The winner is Lisa Kloster (Sailloft) with its powerful Skopu in Fuerteventura!
Best Male Maneuver
In men with more than 25.000 votes cast by the public, the fleet narrowed down to an almost impossible choice between Antoine Albert (Goya Windsurfing), Jacopo Head (AV-Board, Point-7), Yentel Caers and Niclas Nebelung (Fanatic, Duotone , Maui Ultra Fins). The public vote was narrowly won by Jacopo Testa and his One Handed Air Kabi, But the juries favored another maneuver …
The winner of the Men's Best Move of the 2022 is Yentel Caers! With an impeccable Shifty Shaka 360, The Belgian shows his world-class status.
The best combination
The Best Combo Award aims to push the progression in terms of combos by selecting the best combo maneuver of the 2022. With another close score among the same riders of the Best Move category, is once again Yentel Caers to win for its incredible Spock in Double Air Ass on flat water!
Best Rider Part
Eventually, Freestyle is also about flow and diversity. One way for riders to show their strengths is to create rider parts: videos that include their best maneuvers of a session, Travel or season. Il Best Rider Part Award 2022 It will go to someone who created the most diverse and impressive video, without looking at the quality of production. This category received the highest number of applications, with some amazing results.
In the end it was Adrien Bosson who won for his part in “Cape Town Windsurfing Freestyle & Waves 100% ACTION”. What a mix of freestyle in flat water, Chop and waves! Bosson showed his adaptability to all possible conditions in this video, winning the Best Rider Part of 2022 Award, together with the prize of € 1000!
Best Product Video
All’ FPT are passionate about promoting high quality media on freestyle windsurfing and this year they have invested € once again 1000 to reward the best video. For this category the FPT also declares a second classified, As making a decision between the top two was probably the most difficult of the entire voting process in this show. The second is director and cinematographer French Julien Bru for his video “Follow You Stoke – Brazil” with Raphael Bauer.
The winner of the best video produced in the 2022 is … Alex Mertens for his video “The Flame Within”. The American freestyler and director even composed his own music for this explosive action video.
source: FPT
