South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com
Sharon Robb, staff writer
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
LANTANA
With her fresh-scrubbed looks, outgoing personality and killer heelside backroll trick,
Raimi Merritt is about to become wakeboarding's new "It Girl."
The Lantana teenager, who turned pro last September, has all but clinched rookie of the
year honors her first year on the pro tour at age 15.
"You can get good really fast in this sport if you put the work in," said Merritt, the tour's
youngest pro. "It's a lot of fun and you get to travel everywhere. I never thought I would
be this good this early."
Merritt will compete at this week's WWA Wakeboard Championships that begin
Thursday on the Oklahoma River in Oklahoma City. The event is the last in the King of
Wake/Queen of Wake Series. Merritt competes Saturday and Sunday.
Win or lose, Merritt will be awarded MonaVie's inaugural Queen of Wake Rookie of the
Year Award, which is a $2,500 cash bonus prize given to the most outstanding female
rider of rookie status competing in the Queen of Wake series. She has a handful of events
remaining overseas.
"She had the rookie title at the halfway point of the tour," said Mike Ferraro, her
Orlando-based coach.
Since her first wakeboard victory at age 11 at the 2004 Tommy's South Florida
Wakeboard Tour, Merritt has been a natural on and off the water.
"The advantage of being so young as a pro is the experience down the road," said her
father, Steve, a former world champion water skier.
Merritt has won every major competition she has entered including a world pro title. If
she were on the pro tennis or golf tour, she would be raking in endorsements and fat prize
money checks.
Because wakeboarding isn't mainstream, Merritt is seldom mentioned in the same
sentence as golfing phenom Morgan Pressel of Boca Raton or tennis sisters Venus and
Serena Williams of Palm Beach Gardens.
"Tennis and golf is a little bigger than wakeboarding," Merritt said with a laugh.
Still, with major U.S. and international events, the potential for Merritt to cash in is there,
said Ferraro, who works with her and several other elite wakeboarders at the Orlando
Water Sports Complex.
Merritt comes from an athletic family. Her father was a world barefoot skiing champion.
Her two sisters, Mia, 20 and Chloe, 17, and brother Blake, 11, are all athletic. The family
lives on a lake where they can wakeboard or ski.
"She has always been driven," Ferraro said. "Her father was driven and her mom Gina is
competitive. I knew if one of their kids had the drive of Steve and focus of Gina, this was
going to be easy and it turned out to be Raimi."
Merritt is home schooled which allows flexibility to train and compete. She trains
Monday through Wednesday in Orlando, leaves Thursday for competitions and returns
home Sunday night.
The average cost for a pro wakeboarder is $50,000 including travel, coaching and
personal training. Because of her age Raimi travels with a chaperone, her sister and
manager Mia, who handles most of her scheduling and appearances.
She has trampoline and slider coaches and works with retired pro golfer Annika
Sorenstam's personal trainer and sports nutritionist, Kai Fusser, a former competitive
water skier. "Kai is teaching her how to have the power of a football player and finesse of
a ballerina," Ferraro said.
After a series of injuries including dislocated kneecap, ankles and hips, "our goal was to
get through the year healthy and she did that," Ferraro said.
"It's tough to say what the future holds for her but I see her excelling," Ferraro said. "She
has a lot to offer and I see her doing corporate endorsements, movies and video games.
We were waiting for her to blossom and then boom. She's on the radar now."
Sharon Robb can be reached at srobb@SunSentinel.com
Copyright © 2008, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
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