Team breaks record for greatest wakeboarding distance in 24 hours
From May 20 to May 21, Woodland welcomed 10 pro-wakeboarders who set out to break the world record for wakeboarding the longest distance by a team in 24 hours. The previous record of 509.2 miles was set in 2010, but the team managed to break that record by over 5 miles reaching 514.2 miles by the end of the 24 hour period.
The event, which took place at Velocity Island Park in Woodland, was set up by one of the team members, Brian Wheeler, who was also part of the previous record breaking team in 2010. Wheeler says that, while the team has not submitted all the required documents to Guinness at the present time, he expects all the paperwork to be done soon and for Guinness to send the team a certificate verifying their achievement.
Wheeler, who used to write for a wakeboarding magazine, emphasizes that, while the achievement was extremely satisfying, the best part of the event was that it was fun for all those involved.
“It was a super fun event, there were a bunch of really high level pro-wakeboarders there… [We] got a team of people together, we just thought it would be a nice way to kick off the season this year,” Wheeler said.
Despite having just finished the 24 hour wakeboarding feat, Wheeler is also keen to participate in any future record breaking attempts.
Scott Hartman, CEO of Velocity Island Park, which hosted the event, seems to be open to the idea of hosting future events. Having never hosted anything like this before, Hartman says that he thoroughly enjoyed the watching the attempt. Despite some slightly worrying signs of lightening that halted proceedings for around 30 minutes, Hartman says that everything went smoothly.
“We started roughly at about 9:31 a.m. and we went for 24 hours. It was really cold, it got down to 52 degrees with some wind and some rain [and] we’ve never ridden that long before. We ran into some weather, we ran into some lightning and thunder, so we had to stop for a little bit, which means we had to go faster [after] to achieve the distance record,” Hartman said.
Having opened Velocity Island Park just under two years ago, Hartman and his wife sought to open up the thrills of watersports to the general public. Hartman emphasizes that they both take great pride in using watersports, like wakeboarding, to increase people’s athletic confidence as well as ability.
Another member of the team is Hayden Berg, who has been wakeboarding for five years, had never attempted anything like this before. Berg admits that the event was challenging because of the lack of sleep that all the participants suffered from, but he loved the experience because it brought friends together in a supportive environment. Berg is also keen to take part in future opportunities like this because it is something that that he is passionate about.
“It was fun, it was challenging. We had all of our crew together. We’re all friends just having a fun time, we were all pushing each other,” Berg said. “I like doing that stuff, so hopefully there comes another chance or another thing that I’d like to break and I’ll try that.”
Written By: JUNO BHARDWAJ-SHAH – city@theaggie.org
