Qualification Stops
This year, we will roll out 10 skateboarding qualification stops in 9 European countries – Austria, Germany, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, Slovenia, Italy, and, for the first time, Belgium!
Here is a quick breakdown of the upcoming Best Foot Forward 2024 stops:
Next up | 7th Stop | June 8th | Dusseldorf - Germany | Eller Skatepark
Timetable: | |
12.00 pm - 01.45 pm: | Registration & Warm Up |
02.00 pm - 02.15 pm: | Riders Meeting by Stefan Ebner |
02.15 pm - 04.30 pm: | Qualifiers |
05.00 pm - 05.45 pm: | Finals |
06.00 pm - 06.30 pm: | Cash4Tricks - everyone can participate. |
06.30 pm - 07.00 pm: | Prize Giving |
*times depend on number of participants | |
8th Stop | June 29th | Antwerp - Belgium | Skatedepot Antwerp
9th Stop | July 6th | Rotterdam - the Netherlands | Skateland Rotterdam
10th Stop | July 31st - August 01st | Munich - Germany |
31.07. Qualification @ Wacker Skatepark
01.08. Stop-Finals @ Olympiapark
Already in the books:
1st Stop | April 6th | Innsbruck - Austria | Skatehalle Innsbruck
2nd Stop | April 20th | Gothenburg - Sweden | Bunkeberget Skatepark
3rd Stop | April 27th | Helsinki - Finland | Kontula Skatepark
4th Stop | May 11th | Trento - Italy | Skatepark Trento
5th Stop | May 18th | Lausanne - Switzerland | Skatepark La Fièvre
6th Stop | May 25th | Velenje - Slovenia | Urbani Park
It's on! Pre-register now to join the Best Foot Forward Europe Tour 2024
Europe's Biggest Amateur Skate Tour
Since 2017, the Best Foot Forward tour has grown to become the biggest amateur (AM) skateboarding competition tour in Europe. This is THE place for rising European skaters to show their talents and get the crowds stoked with their tricks. Here, young talents can connect with other great skaters and brands from all over Europe.
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The Format
The competition will run with a "Jam format", which means 2 skaters from mixed categories will ride simultaneously in a 2-minute heat. It's important to note that the two riders will be judged individually and not against each other.
There is no age limit, so everyone is welcome to compete as long as you are not considered a "Pro" as this is strictly an AM contest. The tour will include Women, Men, and Groms categories, and each category will have a podium of its own. Apart from many awesome prizes from Blue Tomato and our partners, the top three overall winners from each stop of the men's category, along with the top overall winner of each stop from the women's category, will be invited to compete at the 2024 Finals for the main prize. Blue Tomato will cover all the expenses for the competing riders during the Finals weekend. You will just need to take care of the travel costs!
Hard Rock & Skate Hard - Recap from the 6th Stop in Velenje
What a opening at the Urbani Park Velenje! Especially our 59 skaters from 10 nations made this one very special for all of us.
Last year’s winner at the Slovenian tour stop in Maribor, Jean Semann, managed to repeat his success this year at the brand new skatepark in Velenje. He killed the rails with bs 270 lipslide 270 out and an impossible lipslide on the bump to rail, kickflip fs boardslide on the small downrail and bigspin fs boardslide as well as another 270 lipslide down the big rail. Coming in second was his fellow polish countryman Filip Szalak with an effortless style and a great variety of tricks, an extremely buttery treflip over the pyramid and a massive Ollie up the stairset among them. Lenni Pfeiffer sent the treflip down the stairset, bs smith grinded the big rail and had a trick for almost every other obstacle of the massive skatepark, earning him third place. In the women´s category Weronika Choromanska took the win with great style and bangers like fs boardslide and feeble grind down the big rail.
The podiums played out like this:
Men | Women | Groms | ||||||||
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1st place: Jean Semaan 2nd place: Filip Szalak 3rd place: Lenni Pfeiffer | 1st place: Weronika Choromanska 2nd place: Lina Sevčnikar 3rd place: Nelly Zarzycka | 1st place: Alberto Chakalov 2nd place:Framek Ruthowski 3rd place: Maks Leszner | ||||||||
Say cheese - Recap from the 5th stop in Lausanne
Our journey continued in the sunny Swiss-French mountains. The 43 participants from 6 nations performed some amazing tricks and showed us their steeze.
At the tour stop in Lausanne, Noel was in a class of his own. Starting with a bs disaster in the vert quarter, adding perfectly executed tricks like kickflip crooks on the A-frame ledge or bs 270 lipslide on the A-frame rail, mixing it up with a fakie ollie fakie manual kickflip out, and ending it with a hippie jump for the fun of it he did not leave any room for discussion about first place. Coming in second was Simon with a very well-balanced run throughout the course including a massive 360 Ollie from the A-frame to flat, a beautiful fs flip on the quarter, and a lot of rail tricks like fs crook and kickflip fs bluntslide on the A-frame. For third place, the judges had to weigh Mussie Michael`s more technical skating with a lot of kickflips (for example into fs boardslide and into back lip on the A-frame rail) against Marlon’s more balanced and flowy run. In the end, the decision went in Marlon`s favor for putting together tricks like hurricane and nosebluntslide on the A-frame rail, a big heelflip on the bank to bank and noseslide to crooks as well as noseslide 270 shove-it on the bank to ledge. For women`s first place, it was also a close call between Lela Helfenstein and Noor. Noor took the win with a bit more street-oriented skating including a nice line boardsliding the flat rail going straight into a 50-50 on the ledge mixed with some transfers and quarter tricks. These are our winners:
Men | Women | Groms | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1st place: Noel Schärer 2nd place: Simon Gerber 3rd place: Marlon Leibundgut | 1st place: Noor Crevels 2nd place: Lela Helfenstein 3rd place: Penélope Cremer | 1st place: Julius Christmann 2nd place: Tiago Barcik 3rd place: Alessio Binkert | ||||||||
Pizza, pasta, skate - Recap from the 4th stop in Trento
With summery temperatures and beautiful scenery around the skatepark, 37 participants from 6 nations showcased great skating in Trento.
First place in Trento went to Maicol Fantini, who did not step off his board for two minutes, doing tricks like nosegrind on the out-rail, crooked grind on the big hubba, and a bigspin fs boardslide on the down-rail. Coming in second was Chris Khan with a good mixture of tricks like crooks up the rail, bs tailslide down the hubba, and fs 270 back lip down the rail. Fabian Trojer took third place with fs crooks as well as nosegrind down the rail and a massive nollie bs bigspin on the bump to bump. First place in the women's category went to Asia Lanzi, who demonstrated a good variation of tricks like lipslide on the flat rail, fs boardslide down the rail, and smith grind on the ledge.
This is how the podiums ended up looking like:
Men | Women | Groms | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1st place: Maicol Fantini 2nd place: Chris Khan 3rd place: Fabian Trojer | 1st place: Asia Lanzi 2nd place: Gaia Urbinati 3rd place: Margherita De Gaspari | 1st place: Gabriele Meini 2nd place: Nicola Morigi 3rd place: Kevin Loi | ||||||||
High up north we kept on skating - Recap from the 3rd stop in Helsinki
At the tour stop in Helsinki, the battle for first place was fought between two Norwegians. In the end, Frederik won the judges over with unique tricks like tre flip Lipslide down the rail, fs flip over the pyramid, and a bs nosebluntslide on the bump to rail. Second place went to Daniel who had a firework of tricks, kickflip fs boardslide as well as nosebluntslide down the rail and a tre flip over the pyramid among them. Third place went to the young Finnish ripper Leo Lestelä who killed the the rails with almost every basic rail trick in the book.
First place in the women's category was decided between Elsa and last year's winner Unna. Elsa had more tricks, a nice fs biggie on the hip and a boardslide on the long straight rail among them, but Unna did a smithgrind down the rail, a feeble on the straight rail, and managed to battle through a bs tailslide on the bump to ledge, winning the judges' favor.
All day long the atmosphere was great with all the riders cheering for each other and all the older riders taking real good care of the younger participants - hats off to all the participants and our winners!
Men | Women | Groms | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1st place: Fredrik Tangerud 2nd place: Daniel Knutzen 3rd place: Leo Lestelä | 1st place: Unna Peltotalo 2nd place: Elsa Vormala 3rd place: Ella Makkonen | 1st place: Dani Wikblad 2nd place: Aslak O’Brien 3rd place: Aarni Liehu | ||||||||
Skateboarding inside a mountain bunker - Recap from the 2nd stop in Gothenburg
In Gothenburg, the duel for first place was apparent in the qualification already. In the finals, Kristoffer (Koffe) Kroon secured the top spot with an almost flawless 2-minute-mayhem of tricks, including cab bs tailslide on the A-frame, nollie bigspin lipslide on the bump-to-rail, and his patented late-shove-it fs boardslide on the down-rail. Second place went to Vitus Silas Sondrup with a great variation of tricks like fs 180 sw crooks on the A-frame, a massive fs flip in the big quarter, and a kickflip bs noseblunt on the bump-to-rail. Coming in third was the young ripper Herman Lundmark, who kickflipped into almost every trick of his run - kickflip fs 50 on the A-frame, kickflip fs feeble on the bump-to-rail, and a bs kickflip fatty to flatty out of the A-frame kicker were just some of his tricks.
In the women's division, it was a close one between last year's winner Svea Paus and Vilja Lundmark. In the end, it was Vilja's fs feeble on the bump-to-rail, among other tricks like 50-50 on the A-frame and kickflip up the euro gap, that tipped the judges' decision in her favor. The podiums ended up looking like this:
Men | Women | Groms | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1st place: Kristoffer Kroon 2nd place: Vitus Silas Sondrup 3rd place: Herman Lundmark | 1st place: Vilja Lundmark 2nd place: Svea Paus 3rd place: Vilda Tidholm | 1st place: Oskar Drought 2nd place: Assar Lövgren 3rd place: Edvard Bogren | ||||||||
Summer, Sun, Skate - Recap of the 1st stop in Innsbruck
30 degrees. 50 skaters and 7 nations - are just a few numbers from our personal sunshine reggae. This weekend the Best Foot Forward tour 2024 was officially started in Innsbruck, Austria and we couldn't have asked for a better way to kick-off the season. The vibe was awesome, and the level of skating was really high and far behind what we could have wished for. So let's give it up for our podiums:
Men | Women | Groms | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1st place: Agustin Aquila 2nd place: Santino Exenberger 3rd place: Giuseppe Cola | 1st place: Laura Žáčková 2nd place: Julia Placek 3rd place: Giorgia Meini | 1st place: Alessio Binkert 2nd place: Viktor Jakeš 3rd place: Kevin Loi | ||||||||
About the Finals
Last year, we had a complete blast during the Finals weekend in Berlin. We kicked things off with a mini ramp in the hotel lobby (yeah, you read that right), a city tour with a hop-on hop-off bus full of skateboarders, a standing wave surf session, and a welcome dinner. Followed by skate sessions in various spots across the capital of Germany, multiple Cash4Tricks events, and, of course, The Best Foot Forward Finals 2023 competition.
After such an insane Finals Weekend in Berlin last year, we are completely fired up to announce the details for 2024, so mark your calendars:
Finals 2024 | 29.08. – 01.09 | Berlin – Germany | Skatehalle Berlin
Don't miss your chance to be seen! Pre-register now to secure a spot in Europe's biggest amateur skateboarding contest.
The Prizes
We will make sure that all of the 2024 Tour winners and participants will get an awesome reward for their crazy efforts! Besides Cash4Tricks sessions that are open to anyone at each of the stops, we prepared some extras!
Special prizes
We're teaming up with Red Bull to scout for ledge legends! At stops 1. - Innsbruck, 4. - Trento, 6. - Velenje, and 7. - Düsseldorf, our head judge Stefan Ebner and the local judges will be on the lookout for skaters who can dominate the ledge. The most technical rider of the stop will get a Wildcard to the Red Bull LEDGEnd 2024 event in Vienna at the Copa Beach Plaza Skate Park on July 20th.
Big thanks to our partners - without them, our tour wouldn't be possible!
This year, as always, our skateboarding tour wouldn't be happening without our great partners, who made it possible and provided so many awesome prizes!
You just don't get enough of skateboarding? Check out our story about the top skate brands and skate shoes!
Best Foot Forward is an AM Contest. This means you are not allowed to enter if you have a "Pro Board" or "Pro Shoes" or if you participated in a pro category in an internationally known contest.