Tao Schirrmacher
Tao is one of the most radical, progressive and fastest surfers at Munich’s Eisbach. The 2012 European Champion in stationary wave surfing has been surfing the Eisbach river since 2001 and is a member of the infamous FUS Crew.
After he started river surfing at the Floßlände wave in 2001, Tao has worked his way up to one of the most popular figures in river surfing. Today, he is a local Munich institution and one of the riders who are constantly pushing the boundaries of river surfing in the pursuit of radical new manoeuvres.
Besides surfing rivers, Tao is running his own business as an independent industrial designer. He also co-founded with Felix B Accessories (surf accessories) and Big Ding (a homegrown surfboard repair kit). The repair kit is an affordable alternative for small and big dings, especially useful for Eisbach surfers as dings are pretty much unavoidable in the long run. At the moment Tao is a team rider for Quiksilver, Planet Sports, Swox and Fatum Surfboards. Among his appearance in a 2009 SexWax brand commercial, Tao appears in numerous surf videos and magazines.
Competitive River Surfing
Recently Tao landed the first ever 360 shove-it at Munich’s Eisbach.
Tao is one of the few surfers that actually master a solid bottom turn at the Eisbach. It’s not an everyday thing to see a river surfer finishing off a deep bottom turn with a nice snap and buckets of spray. Such maneuvers are kind of a trademark of Tao’s fast and vigorous approach to river surfing.
Tao’s list of records keeps growing too. In August 2012 he won the 2nd Surf & Style Contest (European River Surfing Championships) at the Munich Airport. On the outdoor artificial wave Tao came out first, just after Quirin Rohleder (2nd), Gerry Schlegel (3rd) and Jan Vogt (4th).
River Surfing Trick Pioneer?
Recently, after some 50 attempts, Tao Schirrmacher landed the first 360 shove-it at Munich’s Eisbach. It’s pretty safe to say that this was the first ever landed 360 shove-it on a surfboard in a river. Check out the vid here: Premiere: The First 360 Shove-it on a Surfboard.
More of Tao
Browse through our photos, videos and stories to see more of Tao’s surfing: Tao on Riverbreak
Brought to you by
PhilB Phil is a passionate riversurfer based in the capital of urban hydro power, Graz / Austria. He graduated from the International University for Riversurfing (IUR) in 2008 before he got married (to PhilK) in 2009. Instead of children, they gave birth to the probably most awesome riversurfing magazine on the planet: Riverbreak.
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