Wave House flowboarder takes first at international competition

It was aerial maneuvers like these that earned Mission Beach Wave House flowboarder Eric Silverman first place in the men’s expert strapped event at the International FlowRiding League of the World Championships in Singapore. (Courtesy Photo)

A team of four Mission Beach Wave House flowboarders took to Singapore for an international competition and returned with a few winners including 16 year-old Point Loma High School junior Eric Silverman, who took first place in the men’s expert strapped event, and Heather Savant, winning first in the overall women’s singles event.

Winners of the hybrid water sport brought home cash prizes and schwag from sponsor Billabong.

The sport requires riders take a small surfboard-like flowboard and surf an artificial barrel or flat wave.

Team South Africa took first place overall at the first annual International FlowRiding League of the World (FLOW) Championships. But Wave House Mission Beach, representing the U.S., returned home proud, taking second place out of four international teams including one wild card team.

Teams represented countries of the four Wave House locations throughout the world including South Africa, Chile, the U.S. and Singapore. Flowboarders, fans and families gathered to celebrate the official grand opening of Wave House Sentosa, in Singapore, Oct. 16-18 for the event.

But it was Silverman who stood out as one of the youngest competing flowboarders and surprised many by taking first place in the men’s expert strapped competition and second place in strapless. Strapped events require the board be strapped to the flowboarder’s feet. Strapless boards allow for bigger more flamboyant tricks, Silverman said.

“It felt awesome when I went into the contest because I thought I was going to get sixth or seventh place … I didn’t think I’d make top five, so I was really surprised because everyone has been riding for a lot longer than me,” Silverman said.

He has only been flowboarding since June of last year and has been “hooked on it since” while some of his teammates have been flowboarding for years, he said.

Silverman even outscored teammate Greg Lazarus at the Singapore event. Lazarus beat Silverman during qualifier rounds at the Wave House in Mission Beach in August.

See related: Surf’s up: Eight great San Diego beach bars

But at least one person wasn’t surprised with Silverman’s performance in Singapore.

“We were very excited for him to do so well,” said Bob Puetz, vice president of brand management for Wave House. “But we had expectations because we know how good he is.”

Silverman joined Greg Lazarus, Tyler Daneck and Kristen Barney to round out the U.S. team with Heather Savant joining the wild card team, Puetz said.

The teams competed for cumulative points tallied from four expert events including the strapped, strapless, men’s drop-knee bodyboarding, and men’s prone boadyboarding. Women expert events included the strapped and strapless events.

The team from Singapore competed in a separate competition because the artificial wave technology developed by Waveloch is new to Singapore so riders competed as amateurs, Puetz said.

Developed by Tom Lochtefeld of San Diego, the first Wave House opened in Durban South Africa and housed the first WaveRider FlowBarrel technology, Puetz said. The Mission Beach Wave House in San Diego opened in 2005 with Santiago and now Singapore following, he added. Though the patented wave machines can be found all over the world, only franchised Wave Houses have the barrel-making wave machine. Puetz said the Wave House organization plans to open a new Wave House every year with the next one planned for Zaragoza, Spain.

Sebastian Ruiz writes for the Beach & Bay Press, where this story was first published.

Tags: Billabong, cash, Eric Silverman, first place, flowboarder, Heather Savant, international competition, junior, Point Loma High School, SDNN, Singapore, wave board, Wave House

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