Wake Utah has been helping run & judge Utah Wakeboarding tournaments for over five years now. In the past couple of years we felt like the division breakdown was a little off and was not promoting proper progression for a competitive wakeboarder. As result it was difficult for riders to determine what division to compete in and sometimes it even seemed to promote sandbagging (riding in a division below your ability level). So this winter we set out to fix all this and after many meetings and discussions with industry reps and judges we have come up with what we hope will be a better rider division breakdown and set of guidelines. For us to expect to get this correct the first time is a little crazy but over time with riders feedback and input these will be perfect.
The two biggest divisions effected by these changes are the Intermediate and Advanced Divisions. These two divisions now have limits on inverts and spins. We have increase the invert limit for both divisions (2 for Intermediate, 4 for Advanced) but have restricted the number of spins a rider may perform in there run (2 for Intermediate, 4 for Advanced). Another big change for these 2 divisions is that a rider may no longer repeat tricks. All of the changes for every rider division is fully outlined in this pdf; Download NEW Rules, Regulations, & Division Breakdown. Make sure to note age restrictions on Grom and Beginner Divisions.
So why did we make some of these changes? Well the main motivation was to promote proper rider progression. As a rider progresses and begins to refine their skills, it very common that the first thing a rider wants to learn is an invert. Sometimes we learn inverts before we even learn how to jump from the toeside of the wake, it’s ok we all did it. Ideally a rider would progress by learning heelside jumps, then toeside jumps, then heelside inverts, then toeside inverts, then heelside spins, then toeside spins, etc; you get the point. What we saw to often was, a rider would just focus on the Invert Limit of the old rider division breakdown and would forget about the other core parts of wakeboarding, that make up good composition.
We know everyone is going to have mixed opinions about this and plenty of questions, and we want to hear them all. What we ask is; make sure you download and fully read the NEW Rules, Regulations, & Division Breakdown doc.
We are really excited about this and can’t wait to see how it works out.
Thanks