Breakout Rippers of 2025 | Pier Bongianni

Making your Freestyle Pro Tour debut at your home spot is pressure enough. Doing it at just 16 years old and immediately looking like you belong is something else entirely.

That’s exactly how Pier Sergio Bongianni kicked off his life on tour in 2025, opening his debut season in Sardinia with confidence, showing a level of style that drew gazes from the very first heat. The performance wasn’t a coincidence. Born and raised in Sardinia, Pier has spent years shaping his sailing in some of the island’s best conditions. Much of that time has been spent at Coluccia, training under the guidance of Sardinian community legend and local ripper Stefano Lorioli, better known as “Stefanino.”

He began his 2025 campaign at FPT Sardinia, where he immediately stood out alongside his close friend and long-time training partner Cosmo Pezetti in the Youth and Juniors fleet. The two have spent countless hours sailing together, and it showed. From the opening rounds, they were clearly operating on a different level to the rest of the field, tearing through heats before eventually meeting head-to-head in the Youth and Juniors finals.

Throughout that run, Pier showed exactly why he’s already being talked about as a future great. His style was aggressive and brutally powerful, reminiscent of the explosive approach of freestyle GOATs and past FPT champions Amado Vrieswijk and Yentel Caers. Stomping huge power moves with rare consistency for a 16-year-old; Burners, Culo Konos, Skopus, all landed like he was out to make a statement. He was also the only rider in the entire Juniors fleet landing Kabikuchis, and he chose to show it in unforgettable fashion. In one of his heats, Pier stomped a perfect Kabi just meters from the beach, narrowly avoiding a crash on the shoreline and sending the Sardinian home crowd into a roar.

Yes, the power was undeniable, but Pier also carried that unmistakable Sardinian secret sauce. One move that appeared again and again in his heats was the Gozzada, a classic expression of “Sardinia Style,” and a clear nod to mentor Stefano Lorioli’s influence.

The Youth and Juniors final against Cosmo Pezetti came down to the smallest of margins. The heat finished 24.4 to 23.1 in Cosmo’s favour, in what became one of the most suspenseful battles of the entire 2025 season. The two were locked together throughout the heat, every landed move instantly answered, scores seesawing back and forth with no clear leader. When the sailors came off the water, tension on the beach hit its peak as judges took an unusually long time to calculate and re-calculate the scores. Eventually, it emerged that one of Pier’s moves had been performed just outside the heat area. Had it counted, Pier would have taken the win. Instead, that single detail tipped the scales, giving Cosmo the first Youth and Juniors victory of the season, with Pier forced to settle for a heartbreakingly close second.

The momentum didn’t stop there. In the Pro Men’s elimination, Pier pushed through to Round 3, taking out Leander Halm along the way before eventually falling to another Sardinian local, Jacopo Testa. A debut event that made one thing clear: Pier wasn’t just here for the Juniors.

From Sardinia, the tour rolled on to Paros, and any doubts about whether his opening performance was a one-off were quickly erased. The months between events coincided with Sardinia’s strongest winds of the year, something Pier clearly made the most of. When competition kicked off at Pounda Beach, he looked sharper and visibly hungry for more performances as strong as his debut.

In the Juniors competition, Pier was untouchable. With Cosmo Pezetti absent, he breezed through the single elimination to take a convincing win, before successfully defending his position in the double elimination against a charging Yoad Shaham. Yoad mounted a strong comeback, but it wasn’t enough to stop an on-fire Pier.

One of the more memorable Pier moments of the event came not in a heat, but between them. freesailing alongside Takumi Moriya, Pier suddenly started throwing Shove-It Spocks seemingly out of nowhere. A move he’d only begun landing during the days of the event, it was a perfect showcase of just how rapidly he is progressing.

In the Pro Men’s fleet, Pier once again proved he could battle with the best. His ability to consistently fill score sheets with big power moves paid off, especially in the tricky outside starboard-tack conditions at Pounda. A standout heat saw him narrowly edge out Sokratis Saraliotis in a razor-thin battle decided by less than a single point. Pier advanced before eventually being stopped by a charging Takumi Moriya in the following round. Still, the message was clear: Pier could hang with the heavy hitters. And once again, the reminder stood, he was still just 16.

Naxos brought a different challenge. After getting a taste of Tow-In in Sardinia, Pier entered the discipline once more, progressing comfortably through a fleet of over 30 riders to reach the final ten. While it was clear that Tow-In is still a work in progress and that he feels far more at home in traditional fin freestyle, his performance was solid. He exited in the finals, finishing 9th overall in a discipline he’s only just beginning to explore.

With Youth and Juniors competition unable to run in Naxos due to conditions, Pier’s season results stood at a win in Paros and second place in Sardinia – enough to crown him the 2025 Youth and Juniors Champion.

Pier Bongianni has already proven he’s far more than a promising junior; showing a powerful style, huge moves and the confidence to go head-to-head with seasoned pros. If 2025 was about announcing his arrival, next season looks set to be about turning potential into permanence. Bigger heats, deeper eliminations, and a rider who’s only just scratching the surface of what’s possible – one thing’s certain: Pier Bongianni is a name the freestyle world won’t be forgetting anytime soon.