World's top wakeboarders in Beijing

When the Shun Yi Olympic Rowing Lake was constructed for the 2008 Summer Games, it captured global headlines as a marvel of design. With its man-made 6.35 million square meters of water surface area, it was the largest such facility in the world. Now it has added an entirely new feature in line with the current global boom in this sport -- a full cable wakeboard facility built to world championship standards.

The official Shun Yi Olympic Cable Park opening today (June 7) will once again capture the imagination of watersports fans when the world’s-best wakeboarders arrive on site to compete for the inaugural trophy. The star-studded entry includes athletes from Australia, Austria, Canada, China, Great Britain, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Korea, Kuwait, Mexico, Netherlands, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Chinese Taipei and USA.

In the Pro Women category, the hot favorites and World Cup stars of the 16 Riders will certainly be Australia’s Angelica Schriber (opening photo), China’s Chen LiLi (aerial pic) and Germany’s Cosima Giemza. Schriber took the Tokyo World Cup and also the RideFest titles last season and is in peak form right now.

Meantime, wakeboarding has emerged as one of the selected sports for the 2020 Olympic Games. The sport would certainly add a totally new dimension to the Games. Board sports are thriving in all forms with snowboarding achieving enormous success in the Winter Games.

The IWWF launched a major supporting campaign some time ago under the heading of Wakeboard Vision to bring Wakeboard to the Games. The 
IWWF has now made a final presentation to the IOC Executive Board in St Petersburg, Russia. They will make their final selection in September.

You can see Australia's Angelica Schriber in action in the following  video:

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