slayshTank Rider Tanner Champion Takes Canadian Wakeskate Title for Second Year in a Row
slayshTank Rider Tanner Champion
slayshTank Rider Tanner Champion has won the Canadian National Cable Wakeskate title for a second year in a row. Congrats to Tanner on some impressive schralp.n Here is a great interview from Tanner featured on Canada.com.
Nanaimo’s Tanner Champion can think of no place that he’d rather be than at the end of his rope. That rope is connected to a boat and he’s on a wake skateboard at the other end.
For the second consecutive year, Champion, 19, is the Canadian champion in the professional wake skate board division of the Canadian Cable Wake Board Championships. He earned the title last weekend in Winnipeg.
Wake skating boarding is similar to skateboarding only the participant is towed by a boat, said Champion. Unlike slalom water skiing, there are no bindings for wake skate board enthusiasts. It’s bare foot on board.
“It’s fantastic. I used to wake board but then I saw wake skating and wanted to try it,” said Champion.
To win the championship, participants must impress the judges in the boat that is towing them in the competition. The judges look at originality, degree of difficulty and the overall performance of each competitor before calculating a total mark for them.
“I have no idea what my score was,” a grinning Champion said. “As soon as I heard that I had won, I didn’t care what it was.
“It’s just something that came pretty naturally to me.”
There is no keel on a skate wake board allowing practitioners to turn 90, 180 and 360 degrees behind the boat towing them. It also allows them to go over ski jumps and other obstacles.
“It’s actually more like snowboarding than skateboarding because you aren’t on wheels but you can have as much creativity in your runs as those other sports,” he said.
While he’s considered a “professional” Champion said there’s not much money to be made yet in skate wake boarding.
“I’m hoping the sport will grow in popularity and then perhaps there will be a chance to make some money on it.”
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