A huge crowd gathered to watch top world’s wakeboarders display their skills and tricks at the soon-to-open boat lake of the Camarines Sur Capitol complex.

PILI, Camarines Sur -- “It is the first that it happened,” said Shannon Starling, co-founder and president of the World Wakeboarding Association (WWA), describing the turn-out of participation from foreign nationals and locals in the 2008 WWA World Championship series which was held here from July 1-6 at the sprawling 150-hectare provincial capitol complex.

        Starling said the open wakeboard competition world series have drawn here at least 250 participants in the amateur and professional categories coming from 20 countries, the Philippines included, where top seed wakeboarders from Australia, Europe, Canada, South Africa and the United States competed, that he said was a breakthrough in attendance they achieved in the 20th year of the world series since it started in 1988.

        He noted that these participants from different continents have travelled far with their families and friends and it amazed him that in other venues of the wakeboard championship world tour, they had not attracted more than 150 competitors in open amateur and professional categories, with riders’ age range from under 9 to 50 above.

        Related to water skiing, wakeboarding started in the US wherein the rider, instead of using a water ski, use a board to ride the wake but the innovative use of cable, instead of boat to tow the rider, started in Germany access after Bruno Rixen’s invention of cable powered skiing was officially recognized in the first German Cable Nationals held in 1972.  In 1978, an unofficial European Championship was organized in Spain.  Finally in 1985, the first official European cable ski championship in Germany was held, and a discipline in waterskiing was born and officially recognized.

        Wakeboarding is an extreme sport executed with the aid of cable technology Rixen developed in Germany starting 1950s or with the aid of motorboat tow practiced in the US since the 1960s.

        In the 1980s, there was a surge in the number of enthusiasts preferring to use wakeboard rather than ski, so that, a number of companies trained their eyes in the construction of cable parks that are now 160 units all over the world, mostly in Europe and the US, two of which are in the Philippines---one was the Camsur Watersports Complex (CWC) of the provincial government of Camarines Sur and the other one in Calatagan, Batangas.

        The proliferation of cable parks opened access to the sport and drew more riders because of the advent of cable technology that eliminated the use of the more expensive boat operation to glide on the water. Since then, the wakeboard fever continues to catch fire among the young ones and extreme sports buffs, so to speak, that made way to the organization of the WWA.   

        Starling was even more surprised when they discovered that both the cable and boat categories of the 2008 WWA World Championship series could be held here simultaneously at the spacious boat lake of the provincial government which is yet to open.

        Now 37, the WWA president who started wakeboarding in Florida when he was 15 years old, was impressed by the watersports facilities available at the provincial capitol here and described them as “nothing like anywhere in the world”.

        He said the decision to start the boat wakeboard competition world series to simultaneously run the event with the cable wakeboard competition only happened here because the cable park and the boat lake are in one location.

        Starling revealed that the boat wakeboard competition series would also be held in different countries, starting here in the Philippines, with its second stop in Detroit, Michigan in the Malibu Open, then, the series will move to Toronto, Canada; fly to Tokyo, Japan and back in the US for the finals at the Oklahoma City.

        Gov. Luis Raymund “LRay” Villafuerte, top finalist in veterans division of 2008 WWA Championship series, said the additional watersports facility of the provincial government would officially make Camarines Sur a “watersports capital”, especially in the international tourism map.

        Villafuerte said that the watersports facilities of the provincial government are designed to complement the existing number of hotels and tourist accommodation facilities of the provincial government and the nearby Naga City.

        He said that with the number of foreign tourist arrivals now, the provincial government has run out of room to accommodate the foreign visitors, including international and national media that he said, are now billeted in several hotels in Naga City.

        Starling said all the top pros from Australia, the United States, South Africa and several European and Asian countries are here to compete for at least $50,000 cash rewards for the top players of which the declared champion shall take the biggest cut based on the official results of the 5-venue world tour series.

        “Not anywhere else have we ever simultaneously held both in one place the wakeboard competition by cable and by boat but here,” he exclaimed and he added that definitely they would like to hold it again here next year.

        Starling said the CWC hosting of the 2008 WWA World Championship series took off in France and it holds it second set here, the first ever held in Asia and the Philippines. He said the next stop is Denmark to be followed by another event in Ukraine and the finals to be held in Germany, where the awarding of the champion shall commence.