Gino Iannucci is revered as one of skateboarding’s all-time great technicians. Stylistically, very few compare. Whether it’s a back 360 down a double set, or just simple push; whatever Gino touches turns to gold instantly. It’s not easy to verbalize what makes his skating so special. Ben Colen does a great job of it in a new interview with Slam City about the cover photo from the November 2004 issue of Skateboarder, which has gone down in history as one of the magazine’s more memorable shots.

It’s awesome to see him skate in person. For one thing, because he skates really fast and… It’s hard to explain but it always looked like when he was trying to do something he would fall off his board – not eating shit – but it was like he wasn’t going to bother landing it if he wasn’t going to do it perfectly.

If it was slightly off balance, he would just let the board go or kind of lean back and fall off. Like, “Fuck it.” He wasn’t going to fight it. That’s the way it always looked to me. He’d just keep trying it and when it was going to happen, it was because that one was going to be perfect.

Read the full interview here. For more on Gino, revisit Episode 02 of Mission Statement.

Image Via Slam City