The idea for Monster Energy Cable Vs. Wake Battle was a concept
that myself and Nick Morris had kicked around since my first
visit to the WakePark NZ. With the Christchurch 6.3 quake leaving the folk down here shaken, broken and without any major
wake-comps this year, and a cancelled wake/kite competition it
seemed like an ideal time to pick this up and throw something
together, taking the opportunity to raise some cash for the ‘Red
Cross Earthquake Fund’. With the cancelled kite event due to be
hosted in just over two weeks time we knuckled down and got to
organizing the event. The main concept of the competition was
to pitch competitors against each other on both the boat and the
cable over two days to find the over-all best wakeboarders in
New Zealand.
WakePark NZ was the host of the cable day. With an incline
rail and 2 kicker’s in the water, the 2 point cable provided an
ideal ground for the riders to showcase what they could do. The
format was pretty straight forward; each rider would get 2 sets,
consisting of 6 passes with a maximum of 3 falls per set, they
gained an equal proportion of marks for cable tricks, kicker
tricks and rails. The weather didn’t exactly shine on the day, far
It’s hitting rails like this that scored Josho a perfect rail score
from it, but the wind kept down and that was good enough for
the riders!
The standard of riding was high, especially considering NZ’s lack
of cable parks until recent months! The Grommies kicked off
the day, and set a high standard with 270 out’s coming off the
incline rail, switch ralleys and some of the smoothest 3’s of the
day. Some of these kids have got a huge future ahead of them,
but the standout rider on the day was Mark Holder taking home
the win alongside a Jet Pilot impact vest. This led onto the Girls/
Womens division, the standard of the riding more than made up
for the small amount of entries. Jess Comber absolutely killed
it on the rails, and after a close call came out on top in Womens
cable. The Mens was the days largest division, and gave the
judges a decent headache deciding on the winner, with some of
the riders opting for big tricks off the kicker, and others pulling
some huge cable tricks. The kiteboarders turned up in force,
adding some technical tricks to the mix. In the end the judges
opted for Jonny Whittaker who came out as the most balanced
cable rider - leaving only the Open Mens left to run.