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Skating through the pain and prosthetics

Meet skateboarding’s bionic behemoth — Clément Zannini has a prosthetic leg, but he’ll be damned if that’s going to stop him skating.

“I push further than my limits,” says skater Clément Zannini. “I know them, but I don’t care about them.”

Zannini has a birth defect which leaves him without most of his right leg. His struggle and determination to keep on skating is the subject of Hurdle, the latest venture from German skater and filmmaker Felix Loechel.

Loechel’s documentary portrait is as short and intense as it is inspiring, with its dark introduction and Zannini’s voiceover giving way to a more dynamic style awash with tricks.

Zannini’s kickflips and grinds are of a calibre many people would struggle to achieve, even without a prosthetic leg.

For explanation, we can point to Zannini’s attitude: “I am 100% about skateboarding. I don’t give a fuck about anything else.”

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