Paganello 2022

This year's Paganello event was a bit last minute as the event itself was not confirmed until February, only 2 months prior. It seemed like freestyle would not happen, but when I contacted Beppe the main organizer he was open to the idea. So, we decided to make it happen. Open Pairs, Mixed Pairs and the Westerfield Challenge on the sand near the water at Paganello Central.

In the End, we had a good turn out of players coming from Rovereto, Reggio Emilia, Forli, Bologna, Milan, Rome and even Cologne.

The weather forecast was for super high wind on Sunday so we decided to do the Mixed Finals on Saturday and have one big SemiFinal pool of Open pairs which would serve as a final if we weren't able to play Sunday.

7 teams competed in Mixed Pairs and the play was hot, especially the top 3 teams! Marco Prati and Gloria Alessandrini's difficulty was on another level, but they had a few drops at the end which left the door open to the other 2 top teams. Andrea Izzo and Guilia Aretano played super clean and made is very hard on the judges as Harry and Jessie Skomroch's round featured nice choreography and a very strong finish. in the end, Harry and Jessie won their first mixed title together.

In Open pairs, 10 teams competed and the Godfather of Italian freestyle, Clay Collera' made the podium along with his partner Andrea Arfili. Clay was also featured in a local news article as he continues to Amaze at the age of 67! Taking 2nd were the beach shredders Andrea Festi and Marco 'Cega' Prati, hitting multiple high diff combos. The winning team of Andrea Izzo and Dario Giusti were in the zone as they hit gitis after gitis and brought their Paga trophies directly to Capocotta Beach (near Rome) to celebrate their biggest win yet.

On Sunday, the wind forced the Westerfield Challenge inside the tent and for the first time ultimate players took part as we created a division especially for them. We got 16 teams to play and is was quite a success as the top team would've made the podium in the freestylers division as well. In the freestyle division Andrea Festi and Tom Leitner (me) edged out Marco Prati and Edo Turri to take top honors.

The winds finally calmed down enough to head back to the beach in the late afternoon and the jams were epic. During the awards ceremony we took a moment to recognize Luigina Tasini, whose tireless work organizing Paganello over the years laid foundation for the freestyle revolution in Europe. Also, the spirit of the jam award went to the young, talented and super fired up Reggio Emilio player Riccardo 'Ricky' Montanari who spent the weekend teaching a kids how to jam and who also supplied the music.

Thanks to everyone who came out and helped make the Paganello Freestyle Challenge happen.

Hope to see you next year!

- Tom

	Mixed Pairs	
1	Harry Skomroch	Jessie Skomroch
2	Andrea Izzo	Giu' Aretano
3	Marco Prati	Gloria Alessandrini
4	Clay Collera	Federica Proietti
5	Andrea Arfili	Elisabeta Dieda
6	Riccardo Montanari	Elena Dalmasso
7	Maurizio Ranieri	Serena Lai

	Open Pairs	
1	Andrea 'Mixy' Izzo	Dario Giusti
2	Andrea Festi	Marco 'Cega' Prati
3	Clay 'Padrino' Collera'	Andrea Arfili
4	Tom 'Lightning' Leitner	Harry Skomroch
5	Alessandro 'Tama' Tamassia	Edoardo Turri
T6	Giu' Aretano	Federica Proietti
T6	Maurizio 'Zio' Ranieri	Lorenzo 'Lollo'
8	Riccardo 'Ricky' Montanari	Akram Abou-Nassim
9	Jessie 'Sky' Skomroch	Elena Dalmasso
10	Gloria Alessandrini	Andrea Luder

Thanks to Edoardo Turri for filming and uploading the videos!

Mixed Pairs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47X45_sj7dw&list=PL54y9IECLGn-yGoRooMbPGjL3OX5DZZ4Q&index=2

Open Pairs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIgclXVeBkE&list=PL54y9IECLGn9DQ_gtumO0YdKmK2gwN7VL