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Fingerboard World Championship

Fast Fingers 2011: Markus 'Schmidi' Schmidinger

Austria's Markus Schmidinger wins in 2011, as the contest settles into a serious annual world-title rhythm.

Kingpin Editorial6 min read

Champion

AustriaMarkus SchmidingerAustria

2011 brings the title back to Austria with Markus 'Schmidi' Schmidinger of the Steyr/Fingaspeak scene. By now the championship has matured into a serious annual fixture.

Part of the Fast Fingers Archive

This is one year in the Fast Fingers Archive — fingerboarding’s longest-running world championship, year by year.
Year
2011
Edition
FF14(inferred)
Format
Live event
Location
Germany

The contest

What happened

Markus Schmidinger won the 2011 championship. He has remained active in later editions and in the Austrian community. Edition and media details for 2011 are not reliably published.1, 2

Fast Fingers / Blackriver (Instagram)

The gear

Gear & setup trends

Professional wooden boards and dedicated ramp parks felt normalized rather than novel; tuned trucks and urethane wheels were the expectation for serious riders.

The scene

Brands & scene

Fast Fingers / Blackriver (Instagram)

The Austrian Fingaspeak scene in Steyr — home to one of the first fingerboard shops — was central to Schmidinger's roots.

The mood

The zeitgeist

Cleaner contest parks, European travel networks, and early social-video momentum.

Today

Reading this year’s setups today

By this point specs matter for listings — width, concave, wheel material, and truck brand help buyers compare like-for-like.

Setup-era context

For the wider gear story of this period, read The Community-Growth Era: YouTube, Bearing Wheels, and a Global Scene from the “Through the Years” series.

Still being verified

  • Edition number FF14 is inferred from the official FF11 (2008) → FF17 (2014) annual sequence and is not independently confirmed.
  • Edition number, finalists, and media details for 2011 are not published on the accessible official pages.
  • His Drop Fingerboarding co-ownership is documented for 2021; the current operator differs. A current Blackriver team-rider status is unverified.

References

Numbered references to the brand, retailer, and community pages that back this article. The label notes how firmly each source is established.

  1. Official event history with the year-by-year world-champion list (2008 onward). Frames the contest as becoming the official Fingerboard World Championship in 2008.

  2. Handle paired with 'Markus Schmidinger' via Instagram search and an Austrian fingerboard-history site.

  3. 3.Drop FingerboardingDrop FingerboardingRetailer

    Austrian shop/brand Markus Schmidinger co-ran (documented 2021); the current imprint lists a different operator.

Independence & sources

Kingpin is an independent fingerboard marketplace and is not affiliated with Fast Fingers, Blackriver, ASI Berlin, or the brands, riders, shops, events, or publishers referenced.