Europeans Boat

[Nickel]

Thanks, I know Port Alfred as well. All the rich people owned holiday homes there. LOL. Nice place to wakeboard. Actually nice place to do anything. Guy I played football with owns the surf shop there.

[wakejudge]

Hi All

Thought I would offer some light on the title "Europeans" issue, NM has given a good explanation on the other matters :-) thx P.

In simple terms titled wakeboard events have been happening in Europe for some time, but in the background. The "Federations" are divided into regions, 3 - AA, Asia and Australasia, PANAM the Americas (North and South) and EAME, Europe Africa and Middle East. All 3 regions make up IWSF, 92 Fed's in total.

When I resigned as Chairman of the World Wakeboard Council for IWSF last October, I took over for region EAME Wakeboard and it is very clear from the interest for emerging countries that wakeboarding is still increasing - like just starting out. In January I met with people from Egypt, Israel, Dubai and Qatar - all to discuss about development, Russia is growing fast and the latest is Morrocco and Tunsia, not withstanding the other Eastern Countries.

Back to the title, the EAME Championships have often been nicknamed the Europeans, mainly because they have always taken place here (in Europe), in fact some have taken the title amd called it the Europe's and no-one has noticed. that South Africa have sent a team for example.

Any EAME Country can host the Championships, not just Europe.

We are now working on using the term, EAME Wakeboard Championships and moving away from European, as we want to attract more Countries and riders, not just from Europe.

Now onto the intro for South Africa, there was no bid for the EAME Championships in 2007 at the "Official Congress - Jan 2007" and SA discussed it with me and put a bid forward and it was agreed and passed, the alterantive was no event for 2007.

The event in SA however, will technically be the 2007 EAME Championships despite being in February 2008.

For those interested the event bulletin, it is on the EAME Wakeboard website IWSF-EAME Wakeboard Council Official Website, I only just approved it on Tuesday and it should be rolled out to Federation any day now.

Whilst in South Africa in February, I viewed the site at the Emerald Casino and it's a great location, 45 minutes ffrom Jo-burg. Details in the bulletin.

Now onto "why", - why no US or other regional riders, some Federations get support for their riders, therefore training and sending the team maybe covered (important, this is not the same for all Federations). In addition grants for wakeboarding may be better if teams come back with more medals or not (depending on the Federation).

The Worlds are every 2 years and EAME Championships every year (with wakeskate every 2 years), if riders come back after a Championships either as a team rider or individual rider with good positions and medals, hopefully their sponsors will be happy and this will allow them to gain more support $$$ plus as a Federation, gives wakeboarding a stronger hand and hopefully support.

I've tried to keep this brief, but that's roughly how it works - I can expand if people wish, good news is that we have interest for the 2009 EAME Championships already, which is great.

Catch you soon.