Fingerboard World Championship

Fast Fingers 2009: Timo 'TKY' Kranz and the Berlin Scene

Germany's Timo 'TKY' Kranz takes the 2009 title — and the Berlin/ASI story becomes essential to the championship.

Kingpin Editorial6 min read

Champion

GermanyTimo KranzGermany

In 2009 the title goes to Timo 'TKY' Kranz, the figure behind ASI Berlin. It is the year the Berlin scene's infrastructure — shop, crew, and Blackriver ties — becomes central to the story of the event.

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: 2009
Edition: FF12(inferred)
Format: Live event
Location: Germany

The contest

What happened

Timo Kranz won the 2009 championship. ASI Berlin's own page records 'TKY in 2009' as one of the team's two world titles. Exact runner-up rankings are not published; community recaps name a finalist pool rather than a full podium.^1, 2

Fast Fingers 12 archive image from the Longboarder Labs event post. — Longboarder Labs (longboarderlabs.com)

The gear

Gear & setup trends

Wooden decks were now the serious standard, with bearing/urethane wheels and dedicated trucks arriving across the era.

The scene

Brands & scene

Fast Fingers 12 event photo from the Longboarder Labs archive. — Longboarder Labs (longboarderlabs.com)

Kranz's ASI Berlin — opened in cooperation with Blackriver and regarded as one of the world's first dedicated fingerboard shops — anchored the Berlin scene alongside Berlinwood.

The mood

The zeitgeist

Forum edits, early brand teams, and the travel-to-Germany myth-building of a scene proving the title could be held by riders deep in the European community.

Today

Reading this year’s setups today

Setups from this window are the first that read like modern ones; stating deck width and wheel type (plastic vs CNC bearing vs urethane) genuinely helps buyers compare.

From the event

Fast Fingers 12 event scene from the Longboarder Labs archive. — Longboarder Labs (longboarderlabs.com)

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.

References

Numbered references to the brand, retailer, and community pages that back this article. Confidence labels show how firmly each source is established.

1.
Fast Fingers — History & World Champions
Fast FingersOfficial
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.
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2.
ASI Berlin — Team
ASI BerlinOfficial
ASI Berlin team page; states the team won the Fingerboard World Championships twice — TKY (Timo Kranz) in 2009 and Dima (Dimitri Schlotthauer) in 2010.
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3.
Timo 'TKY' Kranz — Instagram (@timo_tky_kranz)
InstagramCommunity
Profile titled 'Timo Kranz (@timo_tky_kranz)'; cross-referenced on a fingerboard podcast page.
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4.
About Blackriver
BlackriverOfficial
Blackriver company milestones: founded 1999, Fast Fingers 1 in 2000, first fingerboard park, Blackriver Trucks (2010), Berlin shop (2010).
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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.

What happened