Bratislava Delivered: The 2026 Youth & Senior European & African Cable Championships Wrap-Up

Wakelake, Zlaté Piesky, Bratislava · 24–29 August 2026 · #EUWC26

A week that Slovakia will not forget in a hurry. The 2026 IWWF European & African Youth & Senior Cable Wakeboard and Wakeskate Championships were the first of their kind ever hosted in Slovakia, and Wakelake sent everybody home with the bar raised.

Here is what stayed with us.

The deepest Y&S field we have seen — and the youngest riders set the tone

This was the busiest Youth & Senior edition on record, with the highest overall level of riding the event has produced. The clearest signal came from the smallest riders: U14 was not a support act. Tricks that used to decide senior finals were being landed by 13-year-olds in qualification heats, and the podiums in both U14 divisions were separated by margins that would have been unthinkable two seasons ago.

If you want to know where cable wakeboarding is heading, that is the heat to rewatch.

Nanou Lenaers, run two, and the part of the sport nobody films

Technical preparation gets a rider to the final. Something else gets them through it.

In the U18 Women’s final, Belgium’s Nanou Lenaers went down in run one. What followed in run two was the ride of the event: composed, complete, and delivered under the kind of pressure that ends most people’s day — and it won her the European title.

That is not luck, and it is not only talent. It is mental preparation, and it is coaching. Behind every comeback like that stands a coach who spent the most important moments between runs saying exactly the right thing — and years before that, building an athlete who could deliver it. Bratislava was full of those moments. They deserve as much credit as the tricks.

Schulz and Kleshchar: the battle that keeps rewriting itself

Two weeks earlier, at the World Championships in Beijing, Danylo Kleshchar (UKR) beat Jan-Luca Schulz (GER) for the world title. In Bratislava, Schulz turned it around: gold ahead of Kleshchar in U18 Men, and the European crown to go with it.

They have been pushing each other from event to event all season, and each time the standard climbs. Neither of them is finished for 2026 — the next round goes down at the IWWF European & African Open Championships at Lakeside Paradise, Knokke-Heist (BEL), 30 September – 3 October. Clear your calendar.

A storm on Friday night. A perfect park on Saturday morning.

The evening before finals day, a storm went through Zlaté Piesky. Anyone who walked the site afterwards will tell you what it looked like.

By the time the first rider of finals day hit the water, you could not tell. The Wakelake crew, operators and staff worked through it and had the park cleaned, checked and competition-ready in record time — after already spending five days on their feet running one of the busiest schedules in the event’s history. Finals day happened on schedule because of them. Full stop.


Thank you

To the IWWF and ECWC officials and judges, to SZVW, Bratislava Wake Club and Wakelake as organisers, to the partners and sponsors who made a championship of this scale possible in Slovakia for the first time, to the MCs, the photographers and live production crew, to the team managers and coaches, and to every rider, parent and volunteer who turned six days of competition into a show: thank you. This is what the cable family looks like when it works.

Rewatch the whole thing

EUWC26 — Final Results

Wakeboard

U14 Women

  1. Mia Beza — POL
  2. Greta Winter — AUT
  3. Diletta Marinelli — ITA

U14 Men

  1. Marius Dufour — BEL
  2. Ian Sirigu — ITA
  3. Bastian Hiebl — AUT

U18 Women

  1. Nanou Lenaers — BEL
  2. Eva Rivierre — FRA
  3. Sofia Lara Banášová — SVK

U18 Men

  1. Jan-Luca Schulz — GER
  2. Danylo Kleshchar — UKR
  3. Riccardo Bussi — ITA

O30 Women

  1. Iryna Zharnosek — UKR
  2. Gaia Mancini — ITA
  3. Daniela Ramaccini — ITA

O30 Men

  1. Glenn Vandenberghe — BEL
  2. Charles Ball — CZE
  3. Bence Bodnar — HUN

O40 Women

  1. Elzbieta Nitsze — POL
  2. Friederike Ratschow — GER
  3. Stephanie Williams Caller — GBR

O40 Men

  1. Sjors Van De Kerkhof — NED
  2. Volodymyr Lysenko — UKR
  3. Uldis Zimants — LAT

Wakeskate

U18 Women

  1. Rosa Grzedzinska Aguiar — POL
  2. Kyra Hartan — GER
  3. Victoria Vander Veken — BEL

U18 Men

  1. Rani Nitsan — ISR
  2. Warre Schrauwen — BEL
  3. Vojta Vomacka — CZE

Team classification

🏆 European Team Champions: ITALY — a title won on depth rather than on a single big result, with finalists and podiums spread across categories from U14 to O30.