LEISURE: Swiss ready to hang ten

ZURICH - Surfing could come to Switzerland after a sports group says it plans to build a wave machine on a river in Zurich, the staid financial hub of the land-locked Alpine country.

"Wave riding is also possible far from the sea," said the Stehende Welle (Standing Wave) organisation.

A plastic dam on the bed of the Limmat river would pump out tailor-made waves, the group said, adding it hoped to complete the project in 2006, provided it found sponsorship.

"In Switzerland there are half a million snow boarders and every snow boarder is already halfway to being a surfer. A wave is the ideal substitute in summer," according to a statement on the group's website.

"Even businessmen could have a surf," spokesman Philipp Kempf said.

Copyright: Reuters