Women in Wakeboarding: Smith Mountain Lake wakeboarders seek 2024 world title

SMITH MOUNTAIN LAKE, Va. (WDBJ) – The Olympics may be over but two wakeboarders from Smith Mountain Lake are preparing to take on a world title of their own in Australia.

Ashley Kazmer and Joy Manning have made their names known in the wakeboard world and continue to show what women can accomplish in the sport.

From a young age Ashley Kazmer was gliding and flipping out on the water. As she notes- coming from a family who participates in watersports you learn the skills quickly. This led Kazmer to unleash her competitive side by participating in competitions at 15-years-old.

“At the beginning it was nerve wrecking. A lot of the people I started competing against had been competing their entire life so in the beginning they were a lot better than me but then I started to find my way. I just have a lot of fun,” said Kazmer.

Now at 19, Kazmer has won several regional competitions, competing in Seattle, Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, New Jersey and Portugal– where she became the reigning 2023 Junior Pro World champion!

“Two weeks before competitions I do my runs. So, we have four tricks in one pass and four tricks in the second pass. The whole weeks prior to competitions I practice my 8 tricks in a row, so I get really consistent. Try not to get super stressed out but just do what I know I can do everyday and just be able to execute when the competition starts,” said Kazmer.

Kazmer is setting out for another title this year during the 2024 WWA Wakeboard World Championships in Australia. She’ll be joined by fellow Smith Mountain Lake resident, Joy Manning, who’s proving age is just a number when it comes to being a pro wakeboarder.

“I actually didn’t start wakeboarding until I was about 32 or 33 years old. My entire life I was deathly afraid of water. My husband who is an avid water skier, avid wakeboarder all his life growing up, I told him, let’s go out and try this. So, I put his wakeboard on, got in the water, got up on my third try and I said, ‘I think I really like this, let’s try it’ and he couldn’t get in the car fast enough to go buy me a wakeboard,” said Manning.

With a gymnastics background picking up the skills needed for wakeboarding became second nature. At 51-years-old she’s a 10x National and World Wakeboard champion in the Masters/Veteran Division 40+. Manning has taken on several cities around the world including those in Texas, Ohio, Minnesota, Indiana, Wisconsin, Montreal, Cancun and Japan.

“One of the big reasons that I continue to wakeboard and want to wakeboard, similar to Ashley I have a very competitive background but just constantly having to be aware of what’s going on with my body health wise and physically, I think wakeboarding keeps my mindset to eat right, work out and wanting to keep my body in shape,” said Manning.

Although they compete in different divisions, Kazmer and Manning agree that the key to wakeboarding is having fun, training as much as you can, going back to the basics and slowing down speed when learning new tricks.

”When you’re wakeboarding you need to hold your edge so you can get as much speed into the wake. It’s frustrating not being able to land a trick you landed a thousand times, and you don’t know why. But you just need a different perspective or move on to a different trick.” said Kazmer.

The duo is excited to take on the world championships as they continue pushing each other to be better in a sport they hope to see more women compete in.

“We just get together as much as we can over the Summer. Ashley pushes me honestly. She’s much younger than me but I want to keep up with her. “I think it’s always great to have other girls to ride with. It’s just a much different atmosphere on the boat to have girls than guys riding together. But its fun to continue pushing each other,” said Manning.

“It’s always great to represent Smith Mountain Lake so just going to a competition and seeing someone from your home is always special,” said Kazmer.

The 2024 WWA Wakeboard World Championships will take place from September 26-29th. You can download the WWA app to stream the events live at https://www.thewwa.com/rideline/

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