Arto Saari

Arto Saari (born November 9, 1981) is a Finnish professional skateboarder and photographer.

Saari was born in Seinäjoki, Finland.

His mother was supportive of his skateboarding and his first skateboard was a Vision Gator model.

Saari first attracted attention from the global skateboarding community when he won silver at the skateboarding world championships in Munster, Germany in 1998 at the age of 16 years.

Following the event, Saari was invited by professional skateboarder Danny Way to tour Canada with Plan B, Platinum, and the Red Dragons teams, and received a mailed airline ticket at his family home.

Saari's professional skateboarding career commenced following his decision to relocate to the United States after joining Flip Skateboards.

Saari was selected as the "2001 Skater of the Year" by Thrasher.

To this day Saari remains one of only two Europeans to ever win the industry's premier award.

After receiving the award, Saari stated, "I never thought it would actually like ... whatever, happen to me, or what not. Like, it's just one of those things that's just come out of the blue, you know?"

In what was perceived as a shocking decision by the global skateboard community, Saari announced his decision to leave Flip in 2008 due to the distress that was caused by the death of Flip rider Shane Cross.

Saari joined the team at Alien Workshop.

In an interview with skateboard journalist, Chris Nieratko, following his decision (Saari later contacted Nieratko to prevent the interview from being published and the journalist published it on his personal website instead), Saari explained the process of leaving Flip:

It was really heavy but they [Flip] took it pretty good.

I thought they were going to come and chop my legs off but they were very reasonable about it but it’s been a heavy process.

It’s been on good terms.

I just felt like I had to move on.

I changed all my other sponsors, I might as well.

Why stop now?

New knee, new liver, new shoe company, new board sponsor ... Yeah, I did shed a few tears.

It’s like getting a divorce; even though I’ve never been married other than Flip.

I can imagine it’s something like that.

There’s parts that you like but there’s parts that you just want to move on past.

It’s really hard to deal with.

You wonder, ‘Are you going to lose friends?

Are you going to lose business?’ It was a tough decision to make and I’m still spun out about it.

I can’t believe that it’s all happening but I think it will be for the better for everyone ... I just couldn’t take it any longer.

I couldn’t take the madness and I thought it would be better to move on than to stay somewhere where I don’t think I necessarily belong anymore.

Things have changed a lot over the years and I thought it would be better to explore something new, to be like a little kid in a candy store.

In the Nieratko interview, Saari also discussed Rowley's response to his decision:

“Don’t do it.” He knew it had to happen.

We’re still cool.

He understands.

He’s like, “Go do your thing.

Go skate around.” It was a very, very emotional, gnarly thing.

It’s been so many years in the same boat you have to start going in different ways.

Sometimes the ship gets too small, too many egos, you got to jump overboard and catch the next one and see where that takes you.

At the start of January 2011, Flip announced that Saari had rejoined the team and released an image that featured Saari alongside the caption: "Home is Where the Hearto Is".

A video segment was also published on the website of Thrasher magazine and featured Rowley, Saari and Thrasher editor-in-chief, Jake Phelps, discussing the decision in Phelps' office in San Francisco, US.

In 2012, Saari provided further insight into his decision to leave Flip, citing the death of former teammate, Shane Cross, as a significant underpinning factor: "It wasn't, like, a easy thing to do, but, at the time, I knew I had to do it ... for the reasons that happened, you know? And that's why I decided that it's better off for me to leave Flip than, just, go my own way and, just, do that."

Professional skateboarder, Ed Templeton, stated in a 2012 interview: "I mean I was completely shocked when he left Flip ... it didn't make sense."