If you want to see a sneak peek of what Raph Trinidad might do at the Southeast Asian Games wakeboarding event on December 6, take a look at this video.
Beyond the snazzy videography and hype electronic music, you can see a breathtaking purity to his run, even if you’ve never watched the sport before. Gravity, it seems, can’t quite get its claws on him. As Texas-based pro wakeboarder JB ONeill once said when he watched Trinidad ride the water, “Oh my God, it’s like a video game.”
The clip was filmed back in February at Deca Wake Park — the same venue where the SEAG events will be held — for the 2019 IWWF Cable Wake National Championship, where he won gold in the pro men’s wakeboard category.
A month later, Trinidad would go up against his own idols at the World Cable Wakeboard Championship in Argentina, and walk away with a silver. “That was the biggest step for wakeboarding in the Philippines,” he told SPIN Life. “We haven’t gotten that far. Ever.”
After his South American victory lap, he returned to Deca for the Philippine leg of the IWWF Asian Wakefest Championship, where he again clinched gold.
Now, he’s got his eyes set for a strong SEA Games showing, on a course Trinidad knows like the back of his hand. He and the rest of the national team have been training there as far back as June, when Deca Wake Park was announced as the venue for the sport’s first ever appearance in the regional games.
The home court advantage, Trinidad narrated, was something the 16-strong national team has cleverly capitalized on in the months leading up to the Games. They've been training in the park nearly every day.
“The course right now in Clark, we have six obstacles in the front, and then four at the back,” he said. “[It’s got] a total of five rail hits, and a few air tricks.” But he’s mostly looking forward to the surface tricks — no kickers, no rails, just him exploding out of the water in a flurry of stunts.
“I think I have a huge advantage right now when it comes to [those],” he said.
Trinidad is known for being the first Filipino rider to pull off a double half cab roll — a stunt where you launch yourself off the water and spin in mid-air. Twice.
The 18-year-old native of Liloan, Cebu describes himself as a “water baby”, and has been wakeboarding since 2013. “When my uncle introduced my mom to wakeboarding, my mom automatically said to my dad, ‘This sport is not for us. It’s for Raffy.’”
While the first sport he ever got into was football, he never looked back once he started hitting the waves. Thanks to a sponsorship from Blackwater, he's also been able to devote even more time to the sport. “I just love the feeling of wakeboarding. What’s really nice about wakeboarding is that you really don’t have a limit to what you can do.” You can layer your tricks, he said, adding challenge upon challenge, pushing yourself to see what else you can achieve.
It’s the same mentality he’s bringing to his blazing career. A SEA Games gold is a great goal, but definitely not the end of the road for him. Still, he’s mostly happy that the sport he loves is getting its time in the spotlight.
“It’s going to put wakeboarding in the map in the Philippines,” he said definitively when asked what a gold medal win would mean. “Everyone would know that Filipinos are also good in wakeboarding. I really hope that a lot of people will realize that wakeboarding is a sport we have a huge advantage in.”
And of course, to try it out for themselves, too.
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