Wakeboarding: Weatherall flying high a fitting tribute

Those of us living normal lives often wonder why daredevils do what they do. What possesses a perfectly rational human being to attempt a sport and a lifestyle where danger can cut short not just a career but even a life?

Ask world-class New Zealand wakeboarder Jeff Weatherall, who would be a shoo-in for any vacancy in the Evel Knievel stunt team.

The world-class wakeboarder has an insatiable thirst for danger that is driving him not only to flip up a frenzy on the US wakeboarding circuit but also to put the freestyle motocross scene into a spin as well.

Weatherall, who won the world wakeboarding title in 2003 in Sydney when he was 22, is now trying his hand at motocross and recently landed his first backflip in a stage show which he is using not only to feed his sense of danger but also his creative ability at wakeboarding ahead of the next world championships in Australia in October.

"I've always been an adrenaline junkie," Weatherall said. "If it's scary as hell then I want to do it. I guess I don't have the same mindset as your average person."

But, even accepting that Weatherall likes the adrenaline rush like most of us like a warm fire and a movie, there are other reasons for this lifestyle.

Weatherall, New Zealand's first professional wakeboarder and world champion, admits that thoughts of two dead friends drive him on. One, Richard Wells, a New Zealand wakeboarding champion, was at Weatherall's home two years ago for a New Year's Eve party.

Weatherall explained: "I like surfing, so I sometimes do laps in the bottom of the pool to make sure I can hold my breath long enough when I go under at the beach.

"We'd had this contest to see who could hold their breath the longest. Nobody knew Richard had hopped in the pool and I guess he blacked out on the bottom. We didn't find him for, like, three hours.

Wells and another friend, Mark Kenney, who also died in an accident, have been on Weatherall's mind ever since. "I often think about them and realise that we don't have much time and it can be taken from us at any moment. I just try to take every opportunity I can because the same could happen to me."

Weatherall says he motivates himself by "living the dream" that he and his friends talked about. There is, in that simple statement, a hidden sense that Weatherall drives himself on to stunts like motorcycle backflips at least partly because his two friends can't. He has a life so he's living it to the full, even if that means risking it, as a salute to his friends. It's almost as if he's living life for the three of them.

However, there's a practical reason as well. After pulling off a motocross backflip at the recent X Games in Los Angeles, Weatherall is preparing for the wakeboarding world championships. He rode injured in last year's worlds and finished ninth, so he hopes his motocross work can help him win another world title.

The 24-year-old Kiwi dismisses a question asking if his motorbike exhibition is merely a publicity stunt to set himself apart.

It's certainly good for his profile and sponsorship but it also advances his aerobic fitness and confidence in the air for his number one discipline. All wakeboarders on the US tour are feeding off each other and searching for new tricks. For Weatherall, motocross provides that.

"I am always asking: 'How far can I take this? What is the limit to what can be done on a wakeboard?'

"It's just about being creative and coming up with new ideas. I look to all the other extreme sports to gain some inspiration."

Weatherall's talents haven't gone unnoticed. He has even become a movie star of sorts with cameos in wakeboarding and surfing films like Refuge, Reflections, Running on Empty and Love or Money.

It's all a long way from 2001 when Weatherall made a bet with himself that if he finished in the top three of the New Zealand nationals, he'd give it a whirl overseas. He won and, with the $1000 prize money, four days later arrived in O-Town, Florida - "the mecca of wakeboarding".

Two years on, his punt paid off in Sydney when he celebrated his first world title and he has backed up his whirlwind start with consistency.

Last year he placed fifth on both the US Pro Tour and World Cup standings. He began this year with a win and a second-place at the first two stops of the Australian Pro Tour.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY