He makes the ladies scream his name,
and the halfpipes feel the pain. He is Giorgio, the...
Italian Stallion
GIORGIO ZATTONI
ALL VERT. NO PADS!
Above: The bridge of death is starting to look less and
less deadly, and padless 5-0s as a set-up trick certain-
ly don't help its case.
Right: Giorgio spits on Mike McGill's grave-flawless
540° without wrist guards, bionic hip pads, a Flyaway
helmet or a layback in the flatbottom.
Interview by Peter Hewitt
Photos by Michael Burnett
Giorgio Zattoni
1
How old are you?
My age, 22 years old.
Where do you live?
Savarna, Italy.
Where is that geographically?
92 THRASHER
East Coast of Italy.
Italy's the boot, right?
Yeah, the boot. The stinky boot. I live underneath Venice.
Eighty miles south of Venice.
When did you start skating?
I start skating in 1988.
Street skating?
Anything. Street skating like parks, mini-ramps, anything.
We skated around my little town and then my father built me
a little jump ramp and a little rail. Then we used to hold onto
motorcycles and get pulled around the city. Two years later
my father bought this old vert ramp and they cut it down
and then we thought it was kind of old and shitty; but my
father, he kind of made it new again. Then three years later.
he made extensions on it and made it into a vert ramp but it
was like four meters wide and it was kind of little. We just
2
Italian Stallion
skate it no pads like a mini-ramp.
Did you and your brother start skating at the
same time?
Yeah, me and my brother and some friends we start at the
same time and we all still skate.
Is he a younger brother?
Yes, Gianni, he is 19.
Who were your heroes growing up?
Who'd I look up to? Mostly I look up to American pros and
in Italy I look up to some guys. There were some pretty good
guys in Italy, four or five guys super good in Italy. One of them
was called Niko Stumpo. They were some pretty crazy guys.
One, , called Bruno Ferrari, you know, like the car. He would do
some handrail. One day I saw him do this huge handrail at a
contest, but it was not at the contest, it was a real handrail and
it was like twelve stairs. And in that day there was no one to do
handrails that big. I was like, "Oh shit!"
When did you decide that you wanted to do
twelve-foot airs?
Actually, in '93. In '92 I started to ride motorcycles and
I want to kind of quit skating because nothing was going
on, really. Not like contests or things like that, but you
couldn't even find good wheels. The wheels were so
small and shitty you couldn't even pump. You couldn't go
fast. And then I start to race motorcycles. So then when
I get back into skating I decide I want to skate some big
YYYY