This time last year, we made our picks for the top freestylers in 2013. This year, we wanted to give all of you the chance to let us know your top freestylers of the year! We put the question to you on our Facebook page to pick your top professional and amateur freestylers of 2014 and here are the results:
Freestylers Choice Pro: Marco Sassi
Marco Sassi is simply a phenomenal freestyler. He lands incredibly difficult, technical tricks with perfect style and composure. His complex footwork is a fantastically choreographed, seemingly undertaken in a single motion. His 2nd place run at Paderborn was astonishing, landing an array of incredibly complex tricks that no-one else would dare to try in a contest run. Well deserving of the title, congratulations Marco!
Freestylers Choice Am: Marius Constantin
Marius Constantin is definitely the peoples’ skateboarding champion. It has been exciting to watch Marius develop over the last year and deservedly rise to the top, taking 1st place at the Paderborn amateur contest. With each video part comes a plethora of new tricks, continually pushing his own abilities; “Marius Constantin Best Am: Most progression I saw!” says Mario Steinemann. Marius will return to Paderborn in 2015, and we can’t wait to see the run he has in store for us!
Honorary Mentions
We received loads of votes on our Facebook page and via direct message, providing an incredibly varied set of freestylers. Here are the joint 2nd place choices from the freestyle community:
Mike Osterman
One of the founding members of the Quarter Life Collective and professional freestyler for Mode Skateboards, Mike Osterman is simply an incredible freestyler. Taking the cover photo for the first issue of Broken Fingers magazine, winning the 2014 World Round Up and nailing a 360 carousel were just a few of Mike’s many achievements this year, and people just love to watch him skate!
Derek Elliot
If you’re a regular on the F Forum (and if not, you should be!) you’ll have seen the incredible skateboarding talents of Derek Elliot. In addition to placing 5th in the US Amateur Championships, Derek also has an impressive arsenal of technical truck transfers and one of the best TV stands in the business.
Alex Foster
I was stoked to get a mention on this, so many thanks! I had a great year in 2014, skating at NASS and Paderborn and having the fantastic opportunity to meet and film so many incredible freestylers across Europe!
Pete Betti
Pete is one of those guys who takes each trick and builds on it in some way. If you can carousel one time in a combo, why not do it two times in a combo? If you can no handed fanflip, why not drop it down into rail? Pete’s incredible technical combos are mind-boggling to watch and it’s always a real treat when one of his videos pops up online.
Competition Winner!
By voting in the Freestylers Choice award, one of our lucky fans also had the opportunity to win a copy of Broken Fingers Magazine, a DVD of unseen footage from the NASS Festival demos and a bunch of stickers from fantastic freestyle companies. We numbered up everyone who entered, put those numbers into a random number generator and are pleased to announce that our winner is…
Tony Gale!
Congrats Tony, get in touch with us on Facebook and we’ll send your prize over to you
Many thanks to everyone who sent in their vote and well done to everybody who was nominated. The 2015 contest season is not far away and we have already seen plenty of fantastic videos popping up over the net; so start thinking about your picks for 2015! Don’t forget to join the discussion on the LateTricks Facebook page or on Twitter @FSLatetricks.