Chris Daniels

Jun 02, 2022

Fast Fingers Online '22

Background

In a normal year, hundreds of fingerboarders from all over the globe make a pilgrimage to a town in Oberfranken. For one weekend, this town of just under 7,000 residents plays host to fingerboarding's oldest and most attended event, Fast Fingers.

Blackriver began hosted the first Fast Fingers in 1999. Almost every year since then, there has been a Fast Fingers event in person. As we all know, the past two years has changed everything. Fast Fingers was impacted as well. It turned out to be the one of the most engaging competitions fingerboarding has seen.

Event Overview

Paolo Mellilo & Olli "the Fingerboard Hooligan" Blankenburg were dynamic as hosts. Thom McInally monitored social media, and provided entertaining color commentary. The whole crew was both fun and professional. Thank you for the shout out and love!

Judges included luminaries and legends such as Timo Lieben, Nash Jacquez, Maria Cruz, Manu Oberle, Annie Yan, Denise Herrman, Simone Florian, Cass Hirst, and Andre Coral. Mike Schneider even made a guest appearance! I even spied Afrobi!

Entries were submitted from all over the world, and judges narrowed the list down to 30 finalists that would be judged live on YouTube.

The rules were thoughtful. Entries were to be filmed outdoor with four tricks. One of the trucks must include either a slide or a grind. Judging would focus on trick selection, style, creativity, spot usage, and filming quality. All of these rules seemed fair to ensure integrity of the contest!

The Contest

The contest intself was organized into 5 heats of 6 riders. In between each heat, the production crew showed special videos from riders promoting their upcoming pro models.

Overall, the judges provided fair and accurate assessments for the entries. There also was a diverse group of judges who valued different aspects of fingerboarding, which I appreciated as well.

In the end, Ramon Angelow took home the gold and a whopping 1000€ for his entry, Tobias "Stolly" Stoll took second place and a cool 500€, and Sebastian von Arx placed third and won 300€.

1st Place: Ramon Angelow

2nd Place: Tobias "Stolly" Stoll

3rd Place: Sebastien von Arx

All the entries in the top 3 deserved to be there! There was a handful of other entries that I could have easily seen winning as well. I could have seen Ian Mulet (the switch f/s noseslide pressure flip noseslide fakie flip blew my mind 🤯), Lukas Biesel, and Timur Hasnudinov taking home 1st as well.

There is one area that would improve a future online contest - having the entries pre-judged ahead of time. This provides an opportunity for judges to establish a scoring baseline ahead of the show. Authentic reactions do provide value, but pre-judging allows even deeper insights and talking points for the panel.

Conclusion

Can't thank the crew enough! This was spectacular all around. One huge shoutout needs to Martin Ehrenberger of Blackriver. Martin puts so much energy and effort into these events, and it was apparent this time. This felt similar to the polished events I've seen from some video game world championships. If it was possible, I'd love to see this event happen every year!

Watch the Entire Fast Fingers Online Livestream Here