Battle at the Berrics 8
Freestyle skateboarding’s biggest annual prize purse was claimed again this past weekend with Dutchman Sewa Kroetkov taking the illustrious title of winner of ‘Battle at the Berrics 8’, beating Nike SB's Shane O'Neill in a well fought final.
Although the age old rules of S.K.A.T.E were sacrilegiously changed in favour of a more viewer friendly format eight years ago, with the launch of the competition, there is no denying the simplicity of a testing “fliptrick-off” is still captivating viewing.
Both finalists this year have their detractors and both have been unceremoniously dismissed as nothing more than robots going through the motions. This is simply unfair. Although the training of stock flat ground manoeuvres may well go against the very nature of the idea that skateboarding is a free flowing, creative pastime - the very essence of skateboarding today is landing tricks and these two guys really can do that spectacularly consistently. Click play now to be puzzled at how easy it is for the chosen few…