Wakeboard Champion

What were you doing at 2, 3, 5, 9, or 11?

Meet Kane Ward, 11, who has been into wakeboarding since he was just two years old.

What got Kane into the hobby/profession was seeing his father, Justin Ward, wakeboard with his friends from college.

"I can do just basic flips and spins. I rode some grassroots tournaments around here, but Kane probably passed me around eight or nine years old," Justin says.

For Kane, the most challenging part of wakeboarding is learning tricks like the Raley, Superman, Mobe, and a double flip.

"He is most known for the double flip. He is the youngest in the world by five years ever to do it," Justin says of his son.

By age 3, Kane was fully committed to wakeboarding, and by five, he’d snagged his first sponsor.

"We got approached by Russell Marine here in town. The local manager is a big fan of Kane and seeing him progress as a young kid," Justin said.

One of Kane’s video edits called "Shred to School” also went viral. In the video, Kane rode a wakeboard to school through downtown Huntsville, over waterfalls with a board from Russell Marine. With many eyes upon him, he began to receive more sponsors.

"The local Hyperlite representative reached out to us and said, 'We want to start sending Kane product,'" said Justin. "Flipside started helping him with contests, travel, and things like that. Then he got put on as a team rider, so he was the face of all the kid's gear with Hyperlite."

Kane then began competing globally, winning nationals at eight and his first world championship at nine.

"It felt pretty good to get world champion for the first time, especially at a young age," Kane says.

Now he is currently on a three-peat, with all his world championship wins coming back-to-back-to-back. His first championship was in the 9-and-under anything goes division, the second was in the 10 to 13 anything goes division, and the current is in junior men ages 14 to 18.

And to add to the impressive list of accomplishments, this past year, Kane got picked up by the Billabong clothing line as a sponsor.

When talking about his son’s future, Justin mentioned competing at an Olympic level if the sport of wakeboarding can pass the World Games trial run.

"They're saying they're going to put wakeboarding in the Olympics, but nobody knows if they're thinking more along the lines of boat or cable," said Justin.

Hopefully, the committee will look favorably upon the sport and add wakeboarding to its already impressive portfolio.

After all, “Olympian” has a nice ring to it. 78