It is essentially a cross between surfboarding and jet-sking, although many of its top performers racing off Abu Dhabi’s Breakwater Beach this weekend have arrived via a range of sports on dry land.
Among the 50 professional riders contesting the opening round of this year’s UIM MotoSurf World Cup in the UAE capital are athletes who started off in kart racing, motocross, snowboarding, street dancing and professional hockey.
What they all have in common now however is a love for the water and a passion for the fast growing sport of jet surfing which is on show in the Middle East for the first time.
Martin Sula, a Formula 1 engineer from the Czech Republic, came up with the concept of surfboards with a motor, and it is perhaps no coincidence that two Czechs, Lukas Zahorsky and Aneta Sacherova, launched the defence of their men’s and women’s world titles in Abu Dhabi today.
Hosted by Abu Dhabi International Marine Sports Club (ADIMSC), the 2019 MotoSurf World Cup season opener burst into action this afternoon with 17-year-old Zahorsky winning his first three heats. So did Sula, third in last year’s World Cup series, and another Czech rider who finished one place behind him in 2018, Petr Prucha.
After a 9.30am free practice session tomorrow morning the last heat gets under way at 10.45am before the afternoon men’s and women’s finals are followed by the official awards ceremony taking place at 4: 30 pm at ADIMSC.
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