As most of you might already know, the IWWF Cable World Championships just took place in the Philippines. The Swedish team did really well but I was surprised to see that one of my closest friends Mattias Hoppe scored zero points in his Open Men semi final. Normally even if you ride and crash of the starting dock you will receive 0.1 as your score or similar so my only conclusion was that he must have not started in his heat. Today I got the answer to what happened.
The Hoppe brothers are known for their incredible tricks, their style and their great videos. After Jeremia was eliminated from the Worlds in his junoir men semi, they disagreed with the way the judges had scored the heat and Mattias as a protest didn’t ride his heat the next day. To read more about the situation see the Breddas Facebook Page.
The first thought that hit me was how disappointed I was that Mattias did not ride his semi because I really thought he could take the title of becoming World Champion. Then I read his motivation for not riding the semi’s and I full on agree with most of his points.
Basically he’s saying that the cable competitions are taking a weird direction where the difficulty of the tricks are almost non exist-able while the judges stare themselves blind on perfection in landnings and a variety of tricks. This makes the riders change their runs to fit into the template of “how a run should be” rather than being creative and taking a chance. When I watch a cable competition I like to see the Breddas ride because they always bring something different to the table and I think that should be rewarded. However I do also think that the old school way of looking at it has a point too.
For Example:
To me, the rule that if a rider lands on his back or stomach and still manages to get up (which you would probably never do behind a boat) the trick shouldn’t count. But I still believe a double flip with a messy landing (with a little butt check or a couple of hands in the water) should still score higher than a perfect singel flip of the same trick.
Maybe there is a way we could rewrite the rule book if wakeboarding would get into the Olympics and make it more of both parts?
I don’t think Mattias went about the right way of doing this since I would have loved to watch him ride and I also feel like he is throwing away the money and support the Swedish waterski federation has given him by sending him across the globe to represent our country. There has got to be a better way to go about with this than to refuse to ride? I’m also worried how this will now effect Mattias’ relation with our federation since I like having him on the team and don’t want to see him banned from future events. On the other side I can see people in Sweden who would give their right arm for a chance to represent us in an even like this. It’s pretty arrogant by Mattias not to ride when the spot probably could have been given to someone else who would have love to go there and given their 110%.
To sum up, I agree with most of the cause but not the action. Boat rider for life 😉
Love Carro
ps. I’d love to read your comments on where you stand?