In October, inclusive German surfing championships will take place in the Surftown Munich for the first time ever.
Photo: O2 Surftown MUC
The directions to the best German surf spot still sound a bit unusual. The best wave in this country doesn’t break off Sylt or Noderney, but in an industrial area at Munich Airport. Turquoise-blue breakers have recently been rolling up every day at a federal highway exit in the 12,000-strong community of Hallbergmoos between a kitchen studio and a training center for driving instructors.
The Surftown Munich, Europe’s third and largest wave park, has brought the sea to Bavaria – at least the part that you can hardly find on the German coasts: waves that are only found in Europe on a few selected beaches in France, Portugal and on the Canary Islands. Two meters high, powerful and even. Perfect for riding them.
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They can be generated every minute in Surftown’s open-air pool, which is about the size of two football fields placed one behind the other. This is made possible by a pneumatic wave generator with 34 overpressure chambers. While wind and weather determine the quality of the waves even in the most famous surfing spots, in the north of Munich there are now perfect conditions at the push of a button – all year round.
The surfing elite also want to take advantage of this. Michael Zirlewagen, the President of the German Surfing Association (DWV), has appointed Surftown as the official training facility. In the future, Camilla Kemp and Tim Elter, who were able to surf the legendary wave of Teahupo’o in Tahiti at the Olympics five weeks ago, will also train at Munich Airport.
»I’m really looking forward to the training in Surftown because it will improve us incredibly technically. Because the wave is always the same, you have a huge training advantage because you can train the same maneuver over and over again,” explains Tim Elter in an interview with “nd”. The 20-year-old still feels a certain emptiness after the huge excitement of the Olympic Games, but he is also looking ahead again. He sees the Surftown as an important factor for the big goal of qualifying for the 2028 Games in Los Angeles.
Camilla Kemp even goes a little further: “I believe that this will definitely be a game changer for us, especially in preparation for the World Championships, European Championships and the Olympic qualification for LA 2028.” For the first German Olympic Surfing history, Surftown has the potential to completely revolutionize surfing in Germany, with the clear goal of surfing for the medals in four years.
The team behind Surftown is also about a revolution in multiple senses. On the one hand, the aim is to create optimal training conditions for professional surfers. On the other hand, the 40 million euro wave park is intended to introduce complete newcomers to the sport. “The vision is to make surfing accessible and possible for everyone,” says press spokesman Jonathan Hendess.
For this purpose, a globally unique technology was installed in the Surftown. The 34 air pressure chambers of the 120 meter long wave generator can be controlled individually. »We can play each chamber like a key on a piano and thus offer many different waves. In the range we have 25 waves divided into seven experience levels. But we can also reprogram waves as desired and thus represent real sea and contest conditions,” explains Hendess.
The wave height varies between 30 centimeters and two meters, depending on who is currently in the pool. Up to 700 surfers of all experience levels can try to catch as many waves as possible throughout the day. A two-hour session including equipment and a surf instructor starts at 69 euros.
The Surftown advertises that surfing in Hallbergmoos is particularly climate-friendly. The fresh water in the pool runs through a closed circuit thanks to its own water treatment system. In addition, the pool is not heated. Instead, there are thicker wetsuits for cold days. The electricity for the wave generator already comes largely from the company’s own photovoltaic systems on the roof of the wave-shaped Surftown building next to the pool. After the completion of a nearby solar park, this share is expected to grow even further. “With electricity storage, our goal is to achieve up to 90 percent self-sufficiency with solar energy,” promises Hendess.
Whether Europe’s largest wave park also does something against CO2The footprint of travel-intensive surfing remains to be seen. Until now it was actually impossible to reach a higher level of surfing in this country. There were simply no natural conditions for this. A professional career was unthinkable without traveling. The two German Olympic surfers from Tahiti also make this clear. Tim Elter was born in Fuerteventura, Camilla Kemp in Cascais on the Portuguese Atlantic coast. Both also learned to surf there.
For Elter it is therefore clear that the Surftown can be more of a complement to the sea than a replacement: »The big advantage of the Surftown wave is that you can break down the technical aspect of surfing and you don’t have to concentrate on it anymore “Which wave you take and where you place yourself.” The disadvantage of the wave, however, is that it will always be of a similar size and cannot be as unpredictable as the waves in the sea.
Camilla Kemp also sees it similarly. The 28-year-old can imagine spending more time in Munich in the future. In order to reach the highest level, there is still no alternative to traveling: »I believe that the sea is always part of it, and that means traveling too, of course. I think all surfers are trying to do the best that we can be as sustainable as possible and that this will continue to be an issue, especially because we are so dependent on nature.«
The future of surfing in Germany lies somewhere between the sea and Munich airport. This is also shown by the surfing association’s decision to hold the German championships in Surftown in October. For the first time in their 28-year history, the national championships are actually taking place in Germany. These will also be the first inclusive title competitions because surfers with and without disabilities will compete at the same time and in the same place.
Association boss Michael Zirlewagen said about the decision that they simply wanted to use the opportunity of the Surftown opening to set an example for inclusion. They also want to take risks and try out the new technological possibilities. The DWV president also added to the “nd” that championships in the wave pool should remain a one-off affair for the time being: “Surfing is and remains a natural sport. But we just do it because we want to try things out and have fun with it.«
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