Joslin, Gabbers and Schaar: the First Ever Three Way Tie for SOTY?

"I fucking tre flipped El Toro"

Never has such raw skateboarding passion bled through the screen as the moment in which reality dawns on Chris Joslin’s face, rolling toward his kids’ embrace after finally doing it. He fucking tre flipped El Toro.

It wasn’t the only hammer, either. The 13-stair fakie flip, the bigflip down Wallenberg - all part of the G-Ma experience - but Joslin’s second tribute to his beloved matriarch Joyce crescendoed with the trick that broke the internet. He fucking tre flipped El Toro.

The hype had been intense: a battle eight years in the making, Thrasher’s most important cover in a decade, Atiba recounting the mission, even this week’s Instagram buildup - everything in skateboarding since September had been pointing toward this moment. He fucking tre flipped El Toro.

And it was magical.

In some ways, there’s an even deeper emotional resonance in Gabriel Summers’ 'Gabbers' ender than Joslin’s. It’s not the epoch-defining hammer of a 20-stair tre flip, sure - but anyone who watched the preceding Out There knows that Gabbers’ decade-long battle to ride away from his closing trick was nothing short of monumental.

Knockout slams, guerrilla warfare to liberate the rail from the bondage of skate-stoppers and the apparent desertion of the skate gods all suggested that the kickflip fifty-fifty lay just beyond the reach of a man who wanted it more than life itself. Even the behind-the-scenes buildup - the freak thumb break in Tassie, the emotional fallout of a horrific concussion - seemed to doom the trick to the bonfire of broken dreams.

But ride away from the demon that had plagued him for ten years he did. And in that moment, ten thousand grown men shed a tear in empathetic solidarity with a grown-ass man who may never be the greatest to step on a board but might just be the most determined man alive.

In what could well be the most part-heavy week in skateboarding history (and certainly the first time we’ve promoted footage exclusively from Thrasher), it’s only right that we close out the year with arguably the greatest transition video in a dozen years.

Building on the jaw-dropping progression of Bob Burnquist’s Dreamland part seemed an impossible task, and for 12 trips around the sun so it proved to be. But eventually Tom Schaar stepped up to receive the baton and with Curtains the Birdhouse pro has secured the wizardly status reserved for only the most otherworldly talents in history.

Clipped into a million viral reels and TikToks, it’s almost impossible to have avoided at least half of this part already. But - much like an album played in the intended track order - the curated journey of the part proper deserves to be experienced in its entirety. So prepare yourself for what’s about to follow, and click that play button - you’re not going to believe this…