Gatorade Free Flow Tour
The Gatorade Free Flow Tour is the official amateur series of the Dew Tour, seeking to identify the next wave of top action sports athletes in skateboarding and BMX in the summer as well as in snowboarding and freeskiing in the winter.
History
The Gatorade Free Flow Tour acts as a grassroots platform to support amateur action sports, encouraging a high level of competition. The Tour provides local skaters and riders with the opportunity to showcase their skills in order to gain recognition in their community as well as a chance to compete against the pros on the Dew Tour.
Encompassing the Tour's "Flow to Pro" theme, the top skate and BMX finishers in each of The 50 competitions (30 skate and 20 BMX) were flown to the Dew Tour's Toyota Challenge in Salt Lake City, Utah for the Gatorade Free Flow Tour Finals, where one champion was crowned in each discipline. The overall skate (park and vert) and BMX (park and vert) champions then won a wild card spot to compete against the pros at the PlayStation Pro in Orlando, Fla.
More information—including event dates and locations—can be found at www.allisports.com and www.gatoradefreeflowtour.com.
2005
In the first year of the Dew Tour's official amateur series, the Gatorade Free Flow Tour crowned two champions—Jeff Ward in skate park and Kevin Kiraly in BMX park. Against the pros at the PlayStation Pro, Ward finished in seventh place.
Kiraly has since become a mainstay on the Dew Tour, finishing in 15th place in 2006 and in 13th place on the Dew Tour 2007 in the BMX park standings.
2006
The 2006 Gatorade Free Flow Tour saw some tough competition in both the skate and BMX park disciplines. David Loy (skate) and Mike Spinner (BMX) emerged as the GFFT champions. In the skate park finals, Loy held his own, taking ninth place as an amateur. However, it was Spinner that proved that Gatorade Free Flow Tour winners really can "Flow to Pro," taking first place in the BMX park prelims and landing the first-ever 720 tailwhip.
As a pro on the Dew Tour the past two years, Spinner has finished in second place in 2007 and 2008, becoming the first rider to land the 1080 and the quadwhip in that time.
2007
In 2007, the Gatorade Free Flow Tour Finals produced four amateurs who had what it took to battle the pros, as skaters Ben Hatchell (vert) and Chaz Ortiz (park) and BMX riders John Chin (vert) and Ricky Moseley (park) each claimed top honors in their respective disciplines. After a fifth-place showing in prelims earned him a berth into the skate park finals, 13-year-old Ortiz proved he really could "Flow to Pro," finishing in sixth place against some stiff competition.
On the 2008 Dew Tour, Ortiz became the youngest competitor to win a Dew Tour event, winning the Toyota Challenge in front of nearly 26,000 fans. Ortiz took the title at the PlayStation Pro the following month, also making history as the youngest Dew Cup winner in the four years of the Dew Tour.
2008
With 50 competitions on the 2008 Gatorade Free Flow Tour, the field at the finals included some of the best amateurs in the country. In BMX vert, Tyler Chamberlain emerged victorious, as did Glenn Salyers in the BMX park contest. Paul Luc Ronchetti won the GFFT skate vert title, while Timmy Knuth earned the top spot in skate park. Following in the footsteps of Ortiz, Knuth finished second in the prelims, advancing to the finals. In the finals, Knuth finished an impressive fourth, the best performance by a Gatorade Free Flow Tour winner to date. The first two years of the Gatorade Free Flow Tour featured contests in skate and BMX park. In 2007, the Gatorade Free Flow Tour added vert to both skate and BMX. In an effort to find the best amateurs the United States has to offer, the Gatorade Free Flow Tour has grown with the level of talent—from 20 competitions in 2005 to 24 in 2006 and 30 in 2007.
2009
The Gatorade Free Flow Tour saw even more growth in 2009 as it hit 33 cities with 53 contests. With even more intense competition, the young athletes threw down to make their way from their hometowns to the finals, held in Salt Lake City at the Dew Tour's Toyota Challenge. At the Gatorade Free Flow Tour Finals, Clay Kreiner earned a ticket to skate against the vert pros at the PlayStation Pro, while Mykel Larrin did the same in BMX. Matt Whyatt (BMX) and Jack Olson (skate) pulled out all the stops on the park courses and earned the overall titles in their respective sports. Interestingly, Larrin didn't plan on competing in the GFFT's BMX vert contest, entering the day before the competition as a wildcard. Twelve-year-old Kreiner on the other hand had his mind set on the tour, surprising everyone by becoming the youngest winner in GFFT history.
Winter 2010
After adding Gatorade as the title sponsor of the summer leg of the Free Flow Tour, the circuit was able to expand onto the winter scene. With the support of Gatorade, the Tour was able to create an amateur snowboarding and freeskiing series.
Debuting in January of 2010, the Gatorade Free Flow Tour travelled to 10 resorts across the country, holding more than 40 slopestyle and superpipe competitions in an effort to find the best up-and-coming athletes on the hills. At the Gatorade Free Flow Tour Finals, 57 finalists battled it out for each of the six overall titles and the chance to compete against the pros on the Winter Dew Tour at the first stop of the following season. In the snowboarding slopestyle finals, 21-year-old Cody Boan and Taylor Owen, 16, emerged as the winners, while Norwegian Steffen Hamre claimed the freeski slopestyle title. As the youngest in his field, 14-year-old Torin-Yater Wallace was also the first to drop in during the freeski superpipe contest. However, nothing could keep him down, and Yater-Wallace took the overall win at the Gatorade Free Flow Tour Finals. Joining him atop the podium were 16-year-old Scott Moline and Summer Fenton, 15, who won the men's and women's snowboard superpipe finals, respectively.