Slovakia hosts the Youth & Senior Championships for the first time
24–29 August 2026, Wakelake, Bratislava
For the first time in the history of the sport, Slovakia takes centre stage in European cable wakeboarding. From 24 to 29 August 2026, Wakelake in Zlaté Piesky, Bratislava, hosts the 2026 IWWF European & African Youth & Senior Cable Wakeboard and Wakeskate Championships — a 5-star international event sanctioned by the IWWF & European Cable Wakeboard Council.
176 riders from 21 nations are entered across ten titles, making this the largest international cable wakeboard & wakeskate event ever staged on Slovak water and one of the deepest Youth & Senior fields the continent has seen.
A cable with two decades of history
Wakelake sits on the lake at Zlaté Piesky, ten minutes from Bratislava city centre and a short drive from both the Austrian and Hungarian borders. Its full-size Rixen cable — 810 metres over five pylons — has been running since 2004, making it one of Central Europe’s longest-established wake parks and the birthplace of Slovak cable wakeboarding.
The Bratislava Wake Club, founded in 2014 by Maroš Tuhovčák, turned a single success into a pipeline: a junior programme that now sends Slovak riders to European finals every season.
In 2026, that pipeline comes home.
Organisers and partners
The Championships are organised by the Slovak Waterski and Wakeboard Federation together with the Bratislava Wake Club and Wakelake, under the sanction of the IWWF & European Cable Wakeboard Council.
The event is supported by the City of Bratislava and the Bratislava Self-Governing Region, with Eurovea, TIPOS, Imidjex, UNIQA, Quehenberger, TrAK GS and 228wake among its partners. TV JOJ, Europa 2 and Startitup are media partners.
“We are thrilled to be hosting the IWWF European Youth and Senior Cable Wakeboard Championships at Wakelake in Bratislava. Wakelake has delivered incredible four-star IWWF events for many years, and hosting a Confederation Championship is the natural next step for such an outstanding venue. We are looking forward to an incredible week of competition and to welcoming Europe’s youth and senior athletes and supporters for what promises to be a fantastic championship.” — Suzi Nightingale, President, IWWF Cable Wakeboard European Council
“This cable has been turning since 2004. Generations of Slovak riders learned everything they know on it, and now Europe and Africa are coming to ride it. We are a club-built park, and that is exactly why this matters to us. Everyone who arrives here will be welcomed like they train here.” — Maroš Tuhovčák, Bratislava Wake Club
Ten titles on the line
Six days of competition will decide ten European & African titles:
Cable Wakeboard — Men & Women: U14, U18, O30, O40
Cable Wakeskate — Men & Women: U18
The Youth divisions carry the most weight. U14 and U18 are the categories that feed the senior World Championship squads of the next generation, and a podium in Bratislava is one of the clearest markers a young rider can put down. The O30 and O40 divisions serve a different purpose entirely: they keep the sports’ founding generation on the water and on the results sheet — a reminder that in cable wakeboard, careers don’t end, they change category and purpose.
Slovakia will field riders in every wakeboard category.
Italy sets the benchmark
Every rider arriving in Bratislava knows where the bar is. Italy comes in as the reference point of European cable wakeboarding, having just won the World Championships in China and nations classification at the Youth & Senior European Championships in 2024 at Turin Wake Park in Settimo Torinese — where the Azzurri added seven individual medals on home water: three gold, three silver, one bronze.
A central figure behind that run is Fabrizio Cicerale, founder and manager of Turin Wake Park in Piedmont, the facility that hosted the 2024 Championships, and one of the Italian national team’s coaches alongside Leonardo Gatti and Giorgio Pieri. Fabri is also still a competitor in his own right — he took silver in Wakeboard Master Men at both the 2024 Championships in Turin and in 2025 in Poland. Also recently brought home a silver medal at the 2026 IWWF World Cable Wakeboard & Wakeskate Championships. Few people in the sport have done as much to connect a single wake park to a national programme, and the results have followed.
In August 2026 that programme delivered its most emphatic result yet. At the IWWF Cable Wakeboard & Wakeskate World Championships in Beijing, Italy’s Eva Del Gobbo was crowned World Champion in U18 Ladies. She is entered in Bratislava.
Slovak riders on home water
Two names carry the host nation’s hopes into finals day, and both of them ride U18.
Sofia Lara Banášová took silver in U14 at the 2023 Youth & Senior European Championships in Győr. Three years on she steps up a category — and does it in front of a home crowd, on the cable she trains on. She will be looking to turn that second place into something better.
Ella Belis goes one better on paper: she was European Champion in U14 at those same 2023 Championships. She also moves into U18 in Bratislava, and she rides into the strongest field of her career.
Which is where the two storylines meet. U18 Women puts the reigning World Champion — fresh off the biggest result of the season, backed by the most successful team programme on the continent — against two home riders who have both already stood on a European podium, on a cable one of them has ridden since she was a child.
That is the story of the week, and it will be decided on Saturday.
Schedule:
Monday 24 August — Arrivals, registration, official training
Tuesday 25 August — Official training; Opening Ceremony, 18:00, Eurovea Square Wednesday 26 – Friday 28 August — Qualification rounds
Saturday 29 August — Finals, Prizegiving & Closing Ceremony, Afterparty
The Opening Ceremony is staged in the heart of the city rather than at the venue, on the Danube riverfront at Eurovea Square, and it is open to the public. Twenty-one national teams presented in one of Bratislava’s busiest public spaces is the clearest statement the sport can make to an audience that has never seen it before.
What Bratislava 2026 is really about
Beyond the titles, this is a test of what a first-time host nation can deliver — and an opportunity. A 5-star Championship brings judges, coaches, team managers, media and federation officials from across two continents to a park that has spent twenty-two years working towards exactly this week. For Slovak cable wakeboard, the goal is not only medals; it is to leave the European and African wakeboard community with a reason to come back.
Also, Bratislava is welcoming Turkey as their team enters their first participation at a IWWF European event.
Six days of riding, ten titles, 176 riders, 21 nations, and one lake in Bratislava that has been waiting since 2004.
Competition page: https://ems.iwwf.sport/Competitions/Details?Id=2fa3d67c-1e4e-41e3-82ec-a393bbc6a156
Good luck to every rider and every team in Bratislava.
