Ben Merrell
American sportsmen
Benjamin Judson Merrell, also known as Ben Merrell, (born July 26, 1983), is an American hydroflier. He placed third at the 2013 Flyboard World Cup Championship in Doha, Qatar. Since then, he is well-known and respected as a competitor and innovator.
Early life and education
After graduating, Merrell enlisted in the U.S. Army shortly after 9/11. He completed basic training and Airborne Qualification at Fort Benning, Georgia. He served as an infantryman and was stationed at Schofield Barracks in Oahu, Hawaii. For 12 months during 2004 and 2005, he was deployed to Kandahar, Afghanistan for Operation Enduring Freedom.
After being honorably discharged in 2006, he moved home to Florida where he began his own business, Power Up Watersports.
Flyboard
After ventures in car sales and real estate, Merrell found his passion in 2012 and started one of the first United States Flyboard rental companies, Power Up Watersports, located in the panhandle city of Destin, Florida. Merrell quickly became proficient on the Flyboard and qualified to compete in the 2013 World Flyboard Championship in Doha, Qatar where his huge, arcing back dolphins, daring trick combinations, and crowd-pleasing showmanship put him on the winners' platform in 3rd place.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ben Merrell” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.