Portrait by Gaston Francisco and words by Alex

Hello, yeah, luckily I got the chance to go on a DC Oz and New Zealand tour. I’ve never been south of the equator and basically used my first chance to go out there. I would have loved to attend the Awards, but these kind of travel opportunities don’t come too often, you know? Besides the rad crew, it’s got best hillbombs, nice beaches and pie.

Hmmm, yes it was. I am very thankful to my sponsors for giving me this chance. Red Bull even went over budget to do our DIY skatepark – something for the local community. Besides the two video parts, which I actually did over about two years it was a cool year travelling, living in London, going to the US, China, Morocco. Every day has been a blessing, learning new things and carrying on.

Basically, I was studying business for 4 years, and in the end chose to go for a Business Management with Marketing degree. The main reason of this choice was that the name of the degree has two parts to it; it’s like a two in one you know? I am very happy I don’t need to go sit in the library no more, it’s quite some stress thinking about upcoming exams and deadlines.

I did 3 years in Barcelona and one in London, thus living in Skateboarding capitals, [I figured] going out on missions wouldn’t be hard, and travelling either, as I had good relationships with the tutors and the school in BCN was private. Actually studying Business is as easy as eating pie if you didn’t know. I looked at it as a battle with time, where I must get the most out of it, because time goes on and you can’t stop it. So in order to pass the exams I would study as much as I could during those days.

Frontside wallride. Ph: Chami

Herculean? Ha! The real problem came when I had to pay my tuition the second year, getting a degree is expensive mate! I wrote a fairly big letter to the director of my school to get a discount in exchange for promotion. I filmed videos for my University, they printed me stickers and I got a decent size discount and could continue my student life in Barcelona. I want to thank ESEI International School, the times were rad as the school was on the top of a hill in BCN and every night would be a 15-minute hillbomb back from school. I think going to University and getting knowledge is okay, it’s just a pity it costs so much and that it sucks you into the system that sometimes forgets sharing and empathy for the other. Treat your neighbor as you’d like to be treated, I say.

Yes, my family was doing really hard financially and we were seriously considering me not finishing my studies in Barcelona. But the director of the University was a very nice fellow and I had a feeling they would accept this kind of a bartered deal. I had to do some promotional talking for the University and a little bit of downhill bombing at the very end of the video. The video is a bit embarrassing, trust me! The bottom line though is that I got 30% off the school fee and that let me continue the gorgeous Barcelona life!

I was going to finish what I started. My sponsors understood my priorities very well, they are good folks I must say. It was just tough for me to go on tours for four days where the whole thing would be 10 days or two weeks. There was not much pressure, I’d like to think, although some people would always ask for few more final bangers, you know?  I think I started filming for projects fairly early to make it on time, especially with the Element Am video.

I got an e-mail from a friend saying that I got a few nominations, I thought it was awesome that people recognised my skateboarding. You know, it just hypes me up for more knowing that people like what I do, it is good encouragement!

Regarding my victory, as I said it is an amazing encouragement for future progress and creation. I guess I can say it fuels me for more; it raises my thirst for better videoparts. Besides that it means a lot to my family and friends who have supported me along the way. I used to go on very long drives with my parents across Europe to participate in contests and events, they would come skate the spot with me kind of. It’s funny to look back at it, all the arguments I had with my stepdad… I’m certainly happy I didn’t have to win any contests to get this award.

I hope and promise that this will not make a big-headed fool out of me, we all skate for fun, remember?

Backside powerslide front shov. Ph: Chami

I think Jesus is one of Europe’s best OG skaters and as a true G he stays cool, [he’s] always got a smile on his face and lives true like a child. I’m happy he got the videopart of the year!

The idea for my awards speech was to use some of the comments from the Readers’ Choice voting page. One thing and another it never happened but we had some interesting opinions voiced online. I’m going to give you some of the excerpt from one of them and I’m asking you to answer them:

There are different people in this world, there are different interpretations of skateboarding in this world. For some it’s a contest, for some it’s a form of rebellion. For me it is creating and inspiring the youths. Does Edgar remember how it was to be young and remember first contests, battles with his mates? I see this list as a celebration of good, as something that keeps the industry on their toes. It’s a good promotion of Skateboarding I reckon, appropriate for the digital era.

I voted for Jesus Fernandez as he is an OG and after all those videoparts he’s done and we have loved to watch, he filmed another full part. There are various things that matter, people vote for the European Skater of the Year and they vote for whom they wish, whether they prefer pure shredding or long term involvement, style and motivation. It is a personal choice I guess.

Pole Jam 50-50. Ph: Chami.

The people is not stupid. This vote has been totally manipulated.

Ha ha, John is absolutely right. Latvian people have been awarded as having the loudest and most supporting fans in hockey several times. This can be applied to any other sport or voting competition. We support our people, and the web’s tendrils were vibrating high during the Readers Choice votes. Besides that I also have a few friends that are good hackers and can manipulate the system, thanks for the support!

I want to say One Love to people, remember about the other skaters next to you and support your local skatescene. Thanks for this interview!

This is a bit of a special issue as it’s loosely focused around the European skater of the year awards with interviews from Rookie Of The Year Tom Knox and European Skater of the year/winner of the Kingpin Reader’s choice award Madars Apse. The Burn section is also packed with photos from various nominees such as Pontus , Willow or Jesus Fernandez.

This issue doesn’t  limit itself to a being BESA recap though and amongst other things we’ve decided to offer you interviews from 2 very different skaters: Leo Valls and Hjalte Halberg. Leo justifies his original approach to skating by comparing it to any other artistic activity: “where would painting be if people had only explored figurative painting and it’s technical aspects?”. Further on in the mag Polar’s powerhouse  shows off some of his stylish moves and discusses the difficulties of being a professional skateboarder in a city with such harsh winters: Copenhagen.

We’ve also managed to fit in a warriors trip to Bulgaria and an Indy/Lifeblood tour around Europe. The edit documenting Jake Collins, Kevin Kowalski and the rest of the gang’s drunken ways should hit the web some time next week, so be sure to keep an eye out for it.

Oh yeah, the guy doing a Danny Gonzalez on the cover is Antiz’s Sam Partaix. Is it the first time we see a European wallriding his way onto the ceiling?

Anyway, now that you know what’s in the mag, go and get yourself a copy!

Anyway, here’s his Interview from issue 99.

Words and portrait by Deeli.

What was the cock sucking 
award speech all about?

Ah man, that’s just what booze
 does to a person. I mean if you feed me with free alcohol for two days and then ask me to say something smart, you’re not doing anyone any favours. But the background for 
this was that it was my first time at the tradeshow and it just seemed so bizarre that everyone is so pleasant to each other, how everything that everyone does is so great all of a sudden and everyone agrees. About everything. And all of that just made me want to say something like, hey, it’s not all that great, you know, and maybe we’re just here for the free booze after all? I mean we’re all friends and it’s nice, but like all this praise for everything just seemed too much. So looking at it all with Sean James, getting gradually more drunk we started thinking it was more like we’re all sucking each other’s knobs all day. And by the time of the gala I was so smashed 
I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I basically woke up the next day pretty miserable, wondering what I’d done. So I’m blaming the booze and the lack of sleep and I hope I didn’t hurt anyone’s feelings!

How was your year?

Just fine really, no serious injuries, filming, some photos, the usual.

Anything that stood out as special?

The Emerica dudes visited Europe for a while and I had a chance to travel with them for a bit, that was good. Got to know them a bit better and had fun skating with everyone.

Didn’t you then do a trip with Emerica in the US after that?

Yeah, but that was basically the only time last year when I was
hurt, so that sucked a bit ‘cause I couldn’t do much. But I heard they were coming to Europe again this summer, so hopefully I’ll get to go along again.

Back smith by Percy Dean.

When did you hear about being nominated for this award?

The vote was already on, when Pete (Ruikka) called me and woke me up one morning and told me about it. Pete told me I was up for the award and that I was winning the vote at the time. So I got up and went online to check it, and obviously all the Finns had been going nuts with the voting
– otherwise why would I
be up there winning when there’s Lucas Puig, Chris Pfanner, Steve Fortsner and all these world class names there?

How did you feel about that?


I don’t know, surprised? I mean I knew all my friends would vote for me, of course, and I guess it would be the same for everyone else, right?

Didn’t some Finnish tabloid newspaper mention it on the website as well?

Yeah, there’s an old skater, a friend of mine, working there as a sports journalist and he posted it on their news. So of course there’s a lot of random people who are into sports reading it and when they see there’s a Finnish guy up for some European award they probably went and voted for me, just because it’s easy.

Frontside flip By Jelle Keppens.

So…what do you think, what made you win in the end?

Pfff…it’s hard to say really. I guess I just have to thank everyone who voted for me! But to be honest, I don’t really feel like I did anything special in the past 12 months. I’ve been filming loads and I have this part coming out in a friend’s video that I’m really stoked on, but I mean it isn’t out yet, so I can’t really feel like I should get an award for that obviously. It’s almost like I need to see that part come out before I can feel like I did something to deserve this, if you know what I mean.

What’s your take on the awards in general,
 are they important in skateboarding?

I guess it feels a bit odd, but maybe just because it’s a new thing. I mean we’re used to having the American Skater of the Year, so we’re already thinking about who might
 get it next, but this one came out of nowhere so quickly and unexpected that it’s hard to say what I think about 
it just yet. I’m sure if this award becomes something that’s given out every year it’ll become interesting to skaters and you might get people thinking about what they’ve done that year and if they might have done enough to be awarded for it. Who knows, time will tell.

Any names you think should’ve been on the list of nominees but weren’t? Definitely Samu Karvonen. He had the last part in the Antiz video, he turned pro and all that. Other than that, Tim Zom.

Front board by Jelle Keppens.

Who would’ve been your pick for Skater Of The Year?

Lucas Puig for sure. No one deserves it more than him. Congratulations on that!

Any plans for the year ahead?


Just more of the same! I’m your typical skater who doesn’t want to make any plans and just wants to go where the road takes me.

50-50 by Percy Dean.

After announcing a few days ago that their long time pro Julian Dykmans was retiring, Antiz released this edit of all the new footage that was in their X years promo. It’s refreshing to see the younger generation of Hobos smashing it. I’m not surprised that Remy Taviera’s been nominated for European Rookie Of The Year. Here is the official list of nominees in case you missed it. It’s hard to tell if he’s had a better year than guys like Oscar Candon or Tom Knox though…

The official list of nominees for the second Bright European Skateboard Awards is up: go and check it out.

Be there on Thursday afternoon for flip in-flip outs, tunes, burgers and brewskis.

As a part if the awards we are giving you, the public, the chance to have a say too.

Just follow this link or click the image below to access the voting page for your chance to decide who should receive the award presented at Bright tradeshow in Berlin on January the 20th, 2012.