Local youth Keegan Hodgson continues to take the wake surfing world by storm.
At only 14 years of age, and having only taken up the sport for a couple of years, he was ranked number 1 in the world in the Competitive Wake Surf Association's amateur men's surf division as of June 14 with 230.72 points. Samuel Goncalves of the U.S. was ranked second with 220 points.
"My age group goes from 13 to 44," he said during an interview with the Albertan. "I've been surfing since 2016 but last year's my first year competing."
His dad Karmen proudly noted Keegan competes against wake surfers from as far as Russia, Austria and the U.S.
Keegan travelled to his first-ever competitive events in April in Phoenix Ariz. where he competed against riders from all over the United States, Canada, Japan, Russia and Austria.
He placed second in the first event, held April 13-14, then finished first in Wild West Wake Surf Shootout, held April 26-27.
As school winds down for the summer, Keegan is balancing school work with training as he gets ready for two Canadian tour stops in Lake Chestermere on July 20 and July 27.
"I'm trying to balance between everything. So working on school work whenever I have a chance and going surfing whenever I can," he said.
To stay on top, Keegan works out, but also trains on the trampoline.
"You can take a skateboard without wheels or trucks (fastenings for skateboard wheels) and you can go on the trampoline and do tricks on there with it and it helps with training too," he said.
When told that sounds a little scary and dangerous, Keegan laughed and said, "um-hum."
So far, he said, he hasn't been injured -- either in competition or during his training.
Keegan explained that during wake surfing competitions, entrants have certain rules to follow.
"You have 45 seconds down and 45 seconds back and then you try to do all your tricks that you can in that time and there's judges on the boat that judge it," he said, adding competitors are assessed on the difficulty, intensity, variety and execution of their tricks.
Keegan keeps trying to come up with new and more spectacular tricks to beat the competition. He has a favourite one, though.
"I like doing the 720. You do a 360 but you do it two times, back to back," he said.
Keegan got into wake surfing in 2016.
"We had friends who had a boat," he said. "We just used to kneeboard and wakeboard and stuff.
"And then we just saw that wake surfing was starting to be a sport and we had surfed in the ocean before in Hawaii so we thought that it would be cool to get a boat that you could surf behind. And then we found one of those and we got that. And then I just loved it from the start."
Here in Alberta, he practises at Dickson Dam and Prairie Oasis, near Hanna.
Keegan's dad, Karmen, is proud of his son's accomplishments.
"I think it's great that he's interested in the sport," Karmen said.
"He gets to meet a lot of great people from all over the world and definitely we get to travel as a family and enjoy these nice climates as well, so it's not too tough to take," he added with a smile.
Karmen admited he was amazed that Keegan shot up to number 1 so quickly. He had an explanation for that.
"He spends a lot of time watching videos (about the sport) though, and a lot of time training on the trampoline, so he's kind of keen that way. Once he sticks his mind to something he just keeps working at it until he figures it out," Karmen said.
"That's kind of how he started off the bat. We didn't know people who were surfing. He learned most of it off of watching YouTube videos and all on his own, because we're not a family that surfs. I don't surf, my wife doesn't surf. He somehow figured it out."
