JUST four years after taking up the water sport of wakeboarding, a 12-year-old schoolboy is to show the skills he has learned at a world championships.
Marley O’Toole, who goes to Gordon’s School in West End, has spent the summer representing Great Britain in the under 15s category at boat and cable wakeboarding.
This has involved competing at European and world championship events in Denmark, Germany and Italy.
The first version of the sport involves being towed behind a speedboat on a short board while jumping and somersaulting over the wake. In the cable variety, the wakeboarder is towed around a circuit by a motorised pulley system, tackling floating features that allow even bigger stunts to be performed.
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Early next month, Marley will be the youngest member of the under-15 Team GB squad at the cable wakeboard world championships in Thailand.
He calls the sport “snowboarding on water” and says being on the water is his “happy place”.
“Anyone can do it,” he added. “It’s not that hard, you just get pulled up and when the tricks come it starts to get a bit harder.”
Marley admits to being scared sometimes but said: “Not that much though. It’s just that mental barrier. You just need confidence and have a good mentality. I just go out there and do it.”
He practises all year round, including in the winter, and trains on a trampoline if it’s too dark or cold to be out on the water. In competition, the judges mark the technicality of the tricks, execution, style and composition.
Marley hopes to reach the finals in Thailand and plans to keep the hardest tricks at the end of his performance “in case I land it”, which is rider-speak for crashing into the water.