Compete with the best

The part everyone sees lasts a weekend. The part they don't see begins months earlier.

Emails. Schedules. Graphics. Judges. Accommodation. Athlete lists. Equipment. Volunteers. Filming. Photography. Late nights and seemingly endless small decisions.

Behind almost all of them sat one question: How do we make FTIG better than last year? Not simply bigger. Better. Professional without losing the culture that makes tricking special. Competitive without becoming hostile. High-level without making beginners feel like they don't belong.

Because one of the ideas at the heart of FTIG has always been simple: the athlete entering their first competition should be able to stand on the same floor as somebody competing at world level and feel that both of their journeys matter.

Eventually, the spreadsheets were closed. The planning stopped. And people started arriving.

There is something special about hosting an international event on the Isle of Wight. You don't accidentally end up here. People make the journey.

Cars arrive at ferry terminals packed with athletes and bags. Old friends reunite. People who have known each other through clips and social media finally meet properly. Then different accents begin appearing around the gym.

Athletes had travelled from across Britain, Europe and beyond. For one weekend, a small island off the south coast of England became somewhere the international tricking community had chosen to gather.

For WightTricks, that means a lot. We've always believed that being based on an island shouldn't determine the ceiling of what our athletes can experience. If the opportunity is difficult to reach, sometimes you build the opportunity yourself.

FTIG grew from that idea. In 2026, the world came to us.

Then came the noise. Music. Applause. Shoes hitting the floor. Athletes pacing at the edge of the battle area. Coaches offering final words. Parents watching nervously. And that unmistakable moment when somebody hears their name called and suddenly there is nowhere left to hide.

You walk onto the floor. Everything else disappears.

FTIG is unusual because of just how much of tricking exists underneath one roof. At one end, complete beginners experience competition for the first time. At the other, exceptional athletes produce combinations worthy of international stages.

And from the very first rounds, one of the best parts of the weekend was already obvious. People weren't only cheering for the athletes they arrived with. A huge skill earned a reaction regardless of the shirt someone was wearing. A nervous beginner finally landing something could create just as much excitement as an experienced athlete producing something extraordinary.

People became invested in each other's moments. That feeling wasn't reserved for the biggest divisions. It ran through the entire competition. That is when a competition starts becoming a community.

And there is something powerful about putting every level on the same floor. Because everybody starts somewhere. The child watching the Pro division from the edge of the floor might one day be standing there themselves. And every athlete performing at the highest level was once the nervous beginner wondering whether they were ready.

The Beginner division started the journey, with Oscar taking the first victory of the weekend ahead of Tyler and Freddie.

Then came Rising, where Ava took gold, followed by Gabby and Maika.

The standard continued climbing. Evi won Intermediate, while Jamie-Leigh took Adult Intermediate.

Advanced tightened the margins further, with Sam taking first ahead of Bella and Lewis. Then came Elite. Nastka took gold, Tom silver and Lily bronze.

Every division brought something different. Some athletes arrived chasing medals. Others arrived chasing a particular skill. Some surprised themselves. Some discovered exactly what they wanted to work on next.

Because competition rarely follows a script. A combination changes. A landing shifts a battle. Someone you weren't expecting suddenly produces the run of their life. Momentum can turn in seconds. That unpredictability is part of what makes battles so exciting.

Then Semi Pro pushed the level again. Matteo took the win, while WightTricks' own Milan earned second and Danny completed the podium. Now there was one division left.

Three athletes ultimately stood on the Pro podium. Three countries. Three very different stories.

Josh - Great Britain. Ryuta - Japan. Vilho - Finland.

Ryuta returned carrying the reputation of the previous year's FTIG champion and the same warrior spirit that had taken him to victory before. Vilho arrived as one of Europe's brightest young talents. And then there was Josh.

Home floor. Home crowd. WightTricks athlete.

There is a different kind of pressure that comes with competing in front of people who know your journey. The people around that floor had watched the sessions nobody else sees. The missed skills. The breakthroughs. The combinations being rebuilt one piece at a time.

And Josh delivered. When the final results were announced: Josh 🇬🇧 gold, Ryuta 🇯🇵 silver, Vilho 🇫🇮 bronze. It was a special moment.

Not because tricking needs to become one country against another. The sport has always been stronger because of how naturally it crosses borders. But there was still something undeniably powerful about seeing a young British athlete stand at the top of an international Pro podium on his own training floor.

A British victory. On the Isle of Wight. Against international opposition. In front of the people who had watched so much of the journey happen. Josh had won FTIG 2026. For a few seconds, all the preparation and chaos behind the scenes felt very far away.

Some of the most important moments of the weekend happened nowhere near the podium.

An experienced athlete speaking to a younger competitor. Someone landing the skill they had chased for months. A first-time athlete leaving the floor smiling. Competitors celebrating each other's tricks moments after battling one another. People living thousands of miles apart realising they belong to the same strange little world.

That is one of the things that makes tricking special. It is intensely individual. When you take off, there is nowhere to hide. Your creativity, courage and decisions are your own. Yet almost nobody becomes great at this sport alone.

We learn from one another. Borrow ideas. Battle each other. Inspire each other. Then usually spend the next ten minutes talking about the tricks we just threw.

Individual expression. Shared progression. FTIG exists in that space.

Our judges and mentors brought another layer to the weekend. Daisuke Takahashi, Neve Harvey, Rees Beardshaw, Will Coney, Matteo, Dylan Little, Cailean Macdonald and Bowie Brennan were part of an incredible group of experienced athletes helping shape the event.

Their value goes far beyond deciding who wins a round. Young athletes get to stand near people they may have watched online for years. They see how they warm up. How they approach pressure. How they recover from mistakes. They ask questions. Train beside them. Talk to them.

And suddenly the distance between where I am and where I want to be doesn't feel quite as large. That experience gets passed down. One generation influences the next. And the standard rises.

FTIG 2026 also gave us a reason to feel proud of British tricking. This isn't a sport built on enormous governing structures or huge financial backing. Much of what exists has been created by athletes, coaches, gyms and communities who cared enough to build something themselves.

That makes these gatherings matter. People travelled from every corner of Britain. Different gyms. Different styles. Different generations. Then international athletes travelled here to join them.

Look around the room and you could see what tricking is becoming. Young athletes progressing at an extraordinary rate. Older athletes returning to mentor them. International friendships forming. British competitors standing comfortably beside some of the best talent from overseas.

There is something special happening here. And it is worth continuing to build.

FTIG wouldn't exist without the people who give their time to it. Parents helping. Coaches staying late. People moving equipment. Someone solving a problem ten minutes before anyone else even knows there is one. Filming. Photography. Cleaning. Transport. Hosting athletes. Answering messages. Keeping everything moving.

Our support crew - including Lisa & Lisa, Christo and Jess - played a huge part in making the weekend possible, while Media Matters IOW, Leo Farmershee, TrickFitCapture Robbie and Shee Media helped preserve moments that would otherwise have disappeared as quickly as they happened.

To every volunteer, judge, coach, parent, accommodation host, photographer, filmmaker and spectator: thank you. You didn't just attend FTIG. You helped shape it.

Eventually, the medals are handed out. The music stops. Bags start disappearing from the edges of the gym. People begin talking about ferries, flights and journeys home. A floor that had felt enormous only hours earlier becomes quiet again.

That is normally when you finally understand what happened. Months of work disappear in a weekend. But the weekend doesn't really disappear. It leaves things behind.

Photos. Videos. Medals. Friendships. Rivalries. New ideas. A trick someone now desperately wants to learn. A young athlete who has just seen what might be possible. Someone already thinking about next year.

FTIG began as an idea. Every year, because people continue to believe in it, that idea becomes something more.

We never wanted FTIG to exist simply to crown champions. We wanted a place where somebody could compete for the first time and feel important. Where world-class athletes would want to return. Where different countries, gyms, styles and generations could meet. Where the next generation could stand only a few metres from the people currently pushing the limits of the sport.

A place where people belong. And FTIG 2026 may have been the clearest version of that vision yet.

From Japan to Finland. America to Britain. From Oscar winning Beginner to Josh winning Pro. From someone's first nervous step onto a battle floor to an international final.

Different levels. Different stories. One floor.

For one extraordinary weekend on a small island off the coast of Britain, beginners, champions, families, coaches and some of the world's most exciting trickers stood together under the same roof. We competed. We learned. We celebrated. We pushed each other. And we left wanting to become better than when we arrived.