Day 1
Today was the first official day of the World Cup in Odaiba Bay, Tokyo. The cable park is located almost directly in the city center. The backdrop is amazing; there are giant bridges and buildings everywhere. This cable is unique in the sense that it is on an open bay, so there is a high tide and a low tide. The difference is approximately two meters, or six feet, which is a lot regarding the distance from the cable to the water. Six feet makes a huge difference in what air tricks riders can pull off. On top of that, this cable was built solely for this event. They constructed the cable on Monday, and they will tear it down the following Monday.
The reason that this event is so important is because this World Cup stop is the first step in making wakeboarding part of the Olympics. The IWWF is the sanctioning organization that coordinates with the Olympic committee. So, at this event, there are a handful of officials here from Japanese Olympic Committee that are assessing if wakeboarding is a sport worthy of the Olympics. Only the top riders from each country have been selected to compete at this event, and it’s up to us to prove that it is. No pressure, of course.
The opening ceremony was spectacular. The governor of Tokyo made a speech to welcome wakeboarding as a sport to the city of Tokyo. There was a giant drum performance, followed by the singing of the national anthem. All of it was extremely professional. After that we went straight into the contest. 14 women and 28 men competed for a chance to ride in the finals on Sunday. The level of riding continues to step up at each contest, and this event was no exception. Rocco Van Straten from the Netherlands rode really well, with tricks like pete 5 off the kicker, and a monstrous 313. As always, Dominik Geuhrs rode sick, landing raley 5 and crow mobe off the flats just to name a few. I rode pretty well as well, landing an s bend to blind to the inside of the cable and a toe back 7 off the kicker. It was enough to get me through to the semi finals on Sunday.
After the event the all of the athletes and officials met for an amazing dinner at Ocean’s Restaurant. The buffet style food included everything from pizza to sushi to, my personal favorite, a fondu fountain. After stuffing ourselves silly, we went over to the Sega Theme park where we got to test out some Japanese style arcade games. Unable to read the Japanese on the computer, we purchased the wrong tickets and had to finagle our way onto the indoor roller coaster ride. But after twisting the staff members arm a little, we made our way onto the ride and had a pretty good time experiencing the Japanese culture. Tomorrow we will see who will be crowned as the first cable World Cup champion.
This is what makes Sector 9 so great. This is what everyone should be doing with the Sector 9 complete longboards that they buy….if you have the skills for it..
Don’t have a Sector 9 Complete longboard get one….
Sector 9 Complete Longboards
www.completeskateboarddecks.com
Complete Skateboard Decks
Ricardo “Batman” Conte started wakeboarding/skating on July 2011 in Nitro City. Here he is, one year later showing us what he has learned.
Ricardo “Batman” Conte from BOOTIKE on Vimeo.
Invited Riders Announced for Tigé MyWake Global Challenge
Live Contest Sept. 10-11
Orlando, Fla. — A stacked field of invited riders have been announced for the Tigé MyWake Global Challenge live finals on Sept. 10-11 at Buena Vista Watersports in Orlando. The invitees join the winners from the online portion of the contest, who were selected after submitting videos of their best two minute run to http://mywake.tige.com/ between May 1 – July 31.
Creating a pool of premiere competitors for the first-ever three discipline invitational competition featuring wakeboarding, wakeskating and wakesurfing, the invited riders join some of the sports’ biggest names including Harley Clifford, Rusty Malinoski, Adam Errington, Dieter Humpsch, Dominic Lagace and Chase Hazen. The entire field for the Tigé MyWake Global Challenge live finals includes:
Pro Men Wakeboard
1. Aaron Rathy
2. Adam Errington
3. Daniel Powers
4. Harley Clifford
5. Josh Palma
6. Kyle Rattray
7. Mike Dowdy
8. Phillip Soven
9. Rusty Malinoski
10. Scotty Broome
11. Steel Lafferty
12. Tony Carroll
Pro Women Wakeboard
1. Amber Wing
2. Melissa Marquardt
3. Raequel Hoffman
4. Raimi Merritt
5. Tarah Mikacich
Junior Pro Men Wakeboard
1. Jacob Valdez
2. Jason Soven
3. Keenan Allen
4. Noah Flegel
5. Tony Iacconi
6. Gus Shuler
Pro Wakeskate
1. Brandon Thomas
2. Brian Grubb
3. Dieter Humpsch
4. George Daniels
5. James Balzer
Pro Men Skim
1. Dominic Lagace
2. Keenan Flegel
3. Noah Flegel
4. Tommy Czeshin
Pro Men Surf
1. Chase Hazen
2. Chris Kinsey
3. RJ Garcia
4. Vince Costa
5. Chris Wolter
6. James Walker
Pro Women Skim
1. Bri Chmel
2. Caroline Villeneuve
3. Jackie Costa
4. Vanessa Gonzalez
5. Adrianna Borelli
Pro Women Surf
1. Ashley Kidd
2. Korina Smyrek
3. Raequel Hoffman
4. Aisha Van Wieringen
5. Rebecca Ort
“We’re thrilled to draw such an impressive field of invited riders for the live event,” said, Tigé Director of Marketing, Daniel Gutierrez. “Pitting them against the monthly online winners in each division, we couldn’t be more excited to have the biggest names in each discipline competing in the first-ever Tigé MyWake Global Challenge live finals.”
Recognizing the game-changing format of the MyWake Global Challenge, PCM Engines upped the ante of the contest and doubled all Tigé prize money for the monthly winners. With the matched money from PCM Engines, overall prizes for the online and live portions of the contest are more than $35,000.
Fans can track their favorite riders and comment on their video submissions by using the Tigé Exposure meter at http://mywake.tige.com/exposure#.
