When people talk about the sport of wakeboarding there’s invariably one name that pops up. In a sport dominated by Americans, and American competition, a ‘kid’ from Wollongong has shown the world that while we mightn’t boast the numbers of wakeboard competitors in Australia, what we lose to America in quantity, we make up for in sheer quality.
Josh Sanders is one of the world’s best ever wakeboarders, a man so synonymous with the growth of the sport in this country he was inducted into the Australian Wakeboard Hall Of Fame… at 25!Putting Australia on the wakeboarding map
Sanders first started competing in the States as a 15 year-old in 1996 (the same year he became Australia’s first Junior National Champion), quickly earning himself a reputation for his no-holds barred approach to tricks. After many wins in competitions, ranging from X Games contests to Pro Tour wins, Sanders became the first ever foreign-born wakeboarder to win the prestigious Pro Tour circuit in the US. “Only six people to date have ever won the Pro Tour and it’s the longest standing tour in wakeboarding so to win that was amazing,” he says. “Ten years ago there were no Australians on the tour. Now, not only are we competing on the tour, we’re winning.” In that year, 2005, he also won the King Of Wake competition in America and was the Australian Wakeboarder Of The Year.Supporting new talent
Sanders is so good they name tricks after him, take the Rogan Josh for example, a trick so advanced he’s the only one in the world capable of pulling it off. He also even took on the world’s deadliest wave, Teahupoo, on his wakeboard and survived to tell the story. Sanders works behind the scenes promoting the sport in Australia – running events to give young up-and-coming riders the kind of opportunity he never had. He runs the Supra Grom Series, which has run for two years, and runs a junior development series along the same lines as the wakeboarding pro tour.
“We’re seeing a ton of new riders coming through all the time on the time on the Grom Series,” he says. ”Kids as young as 10 years old are killing it, and it's awesome to see that the sport will be represented well in years to come."
