Watch the full 2022 Freestyle Pro Tour Awards Show in which we celebrate the best freestyle windsurfing had on offer last year! Who won the best move or combo categories? And what was the best produced video and most stylish rider part? Did any particular rookie stand out on the tour this year? Those and many more questions are answered by tour CEO Adam Sims in the official Awards Show! Don’t have the time to watch the full show? Check out the winners below the show.

 

How were the winners decided?

Submissions for the 2022 FPT Awards were open until the very last day of 2022. Every windsurfer in the world was free to send in their clips, moves and nominations as submissions in all of the available categories. After submissions closed, the judging process began. Each category was decided by 3 separate panels, each having 1 vote towards the decision. In the Best Move (Men and Women) categories, it was the public who helped us decide, getting one of those votes! The other two votes were carried out by our experienced FPT Judging Panel, and our FPT Head Judge. All other categories were decided by: 1x FPT Judging Panel, 1x FPT Media Panel and 1x FPT Management Panel. 

Due to the countless quality submissions, it was a tough process. This became even more apparent with a number of the online public vote heats being extremely close! With more than 25.000 votes cast, and our judges spending sleepless nights dissecting every move, the results are now in!

Before getting to it, we would like to extend a massive thanks to our judges for all their hard work, and to you, the public, for helping us decide! So who won!?

Fanatic/Duotone Rookie of the Year Award

Fanatic and Duotone have been at the forefront of supporting new Freestyle talent forever. With their Young Blood team, currently consisting of Tijmen Meijer and Eugenio Marconi, they aim to foster the future of our sport by helping up and coming talent around the world. This year they committed to supporting the Freestyle Pro Tour Rookie of the Year Award by offering a Board and a Rig, as well as entry into the prestigious team of up and coming rippers! 

A rookie is a person who competed in the Pro division of the Freestyle Pro Tour for the first time in 2022. We’ve had multiple rookies this season, and it’s always refreshing 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. There was one rider however, who managed to impress the FPT, Fanatic and Duotone the most. With his motivation, quality sailing and progression this year it is Primus Sorling who is awarded with the Fanatic/Duotone Rookie of the Year Award! Stay tuned for more news about the up and coming Swedish-Kenyan freestyler!

Most Improved Rider in 2022

Of course there are loads of riders who have already entered competition before, but still show a lot of promise! The Most Improved Rider of 2022 Award goes to someone who has impressed everyone by bursting onto the scene at the EFPT Summer Opening event in Austria, claiming an impressive 7th place and taking down some big names along the way. Consistently improving his competitive sailing, the award goes to the Austrian Michi Czech (Severne)!

 

2022 Stylemaster

Once you improve and learn new moves, it’s adding style to your sailing that makes you a freestyler. The Stylemaster award puts a spotlight on a rider who has displayed a unique style this year. This category was tough to call, due to style being very subjective. With a host of quality nominations (check the full show to see who was considered), it came down to one sailor in the end. With a consistent and very adaptive style, the Stylemaster Award goes to Adrien Bosson (Fanatic/Duotone/Maui Ultra Fins)!

Check out the freshly baked World Champion’s latest video and read our interview with him about it here.

Best New Move

The best new move category caused some headaches! It’s not every year that a completely new move is landed, and sometimes it’s not clear whether someone is really the first one to do it. Most people might have expected Yentel Caers (JP/NeilPryde) winning this category with his insane Double Air Burner, but after some detective work one can find a video of Hugo de Sousa performing the feat back in 2016 already.

In the end it was Steven Van Broeckhoven (Starboard/GUNSAILS) who wins the award for the Best New Move with his Pushloop into Flaka filmed in Dahab! Congratulations to Steven for still innovating the sport after so many years on the scene!

Best Move Women

Of course you do not need to land a new move to impress the freestyle world. There’s plenty of known moves out there that deserve being highlighted! In this category we asked you to help us decide the Best Move landed by a woman in 2022. With a very close call, the winner is… Lisa Kloster (Sailloft) with her powerful Skopu in Fuerteventura! Congratulations!

Best Move Men

In the Men we had a full elimination ladder of submissions. With more than 25.000 votes cast in the public vote, the fleet got narrowed down to an almost impossible choice between Antoine Albert (Goya Windsurfing), Jacopo Testa (AV-Board, Point-7), Yentel Caers and Niclas Nebelung (Fanatic, Duotone, Maui Ultra Fins). The public vote was very closely won by Jacopo Testa and his One Handed Air Kabi, but the judging panels favoured another move, making the final results as follows …

The winner of the 2022 Best Move in the men is Yentel Caers! With a flawless Shifty Shaka 360, the Belgian shows his world class status. Congratulations!

Best Combo

Let’s not forget that one can also chain moves together. The Best Combo Award aims to push the progression in terms of combo’s by selecting the best combination move of 2022. With another close call between the same riders as in the Best Move category, it i’s once again Yentel Caers who takes the win for his incredible Spock into Double Air Culo on flat water! Congratulations!

Best Rider Part

In the end, freestyle is also about flow and diversity. One way for riders to show off their strengths is by creating rider parts – videos including their best moves of a session, trip or season. The 2022 Best Rider Part Award will go to someone who has created the most diverse and impressive video, without looking at production quality. This category had the most submissions, with some amazing standouts. Check out the full show above to see who was considered for the win. 

In the end it was Adrien Bosson taking the win for his part in “Cape Town Windsurfing Freestyle & Waves 100% ACTION”. What a mix of freestyle in flat water, chop and waves! Bosson showed off his adaptability to all possible conditions in this video, landing him the Best Rider Part of 2022 Award, along with the €1000 prize!

Best Produced Video

Finally we come to the category close to the core of the Freestyle Pro Tour – The Best Produced Video Award. At the tour we are passionate about pushing high quality media about freestyle windsurfing, and this year we put €1000 towards rewarding the best edit once again. We were delighted to see the influx of quality videos created this year! For this category we are going to call a runner up, as making a decision between these two was likely the hardest of the entire voting process in this show.

Taking second is french director and cinematographer Julien Bru for his video “Follow You Stoke – Brazil” starring Raphael Bauer.

What a feast to the eyes. We truly enjoyed the journey Julien took us on in this video, and we are excited to see more quality video coming from him!

The winner of the Best Produced Video in 2022 is… Alex Mertens for his video “The Flame Within”. The American freestyler and filmmaker even composed his own music for this explosive action clip:

Congratulations to Alex! Read our interview with him about the video by clicking HERE.

That’s it for the 2022 FPT Awards! The €5000 prize fund is allocated, and it’s now time to put our eyes towards 2023! What quality freestyle windsurfing videos will you make this year?