The German artificial wave company Citywave will launch today, April 24 in Israel, the first surfing circuit on static waves in the world, with seven stops in seven countries, each one distributing 10.000 Euros, the company itself announced on its website.

Citywave is a Munich, Germany-based artificial wave technology company that based its model on the wave from its city's river, the Eisbach, to replicate what is possibly the most famous static wave in the world and the one that gave rise to this surfing variant known as Rapid Surfing.

Despite the fact that it is static, which makes it certainly different from what we know as surfing, one of the advantages of the Citywave company compared to its competitors such as Wavegarden or American Wave Machines is that the space required to install its technology is much smaller, a maximum of 26 x 30 meters, which helped them open facilities all over the world relatively quickly.

They have establishments inside shopping centres in Germany or in open-air spaces in places like Israel, Austria, Switzerland, France or even in Tokyo, where even DJ Steve Aoki himself wanted to come and try the experience.

That is why this year they are launching a tour of all their facilities, including the one they announced in Washington, United States, which is currently under construction. The first stop will be in Israel and is scheduled to start on April 25 at 12 noon.

Among the favourites are obviously local surfers from the Eisbach River itself, such as 17-year-old Lenny Weinhold or the German duo Valeska Scheier and Janina Zeitler, who have been seen on several occasions representing their country at the ISA World Championships or at WSL QS events.

The events are open to any participant with a registration period that closes two weeks before each stop with a cost of €75 for the Open and Master categories (Men and Women) and €40 for the Junior category.

Each event will have a maximum of 80 participants distributed as follows:
Men Open: 32 participants
Women Open: 16 participants
Masters: 16 participants
Juniors: 16 participants

The championship will be held in series of four surfers who will ride individual waves for 30 seconds and will be judged by a panel of three judges and a head judge.

The prizes will be shared equally between Men and Women with €1600 for the winners of the Open categories, €800 for the winner of the Master category and €200 for the winner in the Junior category.

The winners of the tour will earn a spot at the invitational event that Citywave is scheduled to host just before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

It is to be expected that many skeptics will appear saying that this is not surfing, but in reality, they themselves are the first to recognize that it is a different variant, hence the name Rapid Surfing, which encompasses all surfing done on static waves; whether artificial, in lakes or rivers. What is clear is that it is another example of how the sport is growing and non-traditional surfing countries are finding alternatives to practice it, develop it and create their community around it.

The seven stops of the tour can be followed live:

-Hadera, Israel - April 24
-Vienna, Austria - June 15
-Zurich, Switzerland - July 6
-Tokyo, Japan - July 18
-St. Gilles Croix de Vie, France- August
-Munich, Germany - September
-Washington, USA  - to be specified

 

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A publication shared by CITYWAVE® (@citywave.de) the 21 Jun 2018 has 8: 13 PDT