WORLD
WATERSKI CHAMPIONSHIPS – 2001
Recetto
Regione Piemonte
Italy
DAY
3. THURSDAY Sept 27th
What a day !
Sunshine from the 8.00am start to the 7.00pm finish, flat calm water and some
of the most exciting Skiing we have seen all year. The programme was all preliminary Slalom and Tricks.
We kicked off in
the early morning haze with Women’s Slalom series 5,4 and 3 – knowing that
there were only 12 places in the Finals and here we had 40 Athletes with high
hopes. First off the dock was Swiss Athlete Valerie Jacquier and she clocked up
a very respectable 6 buoys on the 13m / 32 off line – and 4 buoys off a
personal best score. From there it just
got better and better. Here is the summary. Of the 40 Athletes, 17 got on to
the 11.25m / 38 off line and only 7 did not run the 13m line. The lowest score
was 2 at 13m / 32 off. All World
Championship hopefuls please take note !
The popular
Greek Slalom Skier, Angeliki Andriopoulou, got a half buoy on the 11.25m line
in Series 2 – the best she had ever achieved. With 19 Skiers remaining, this
acted like a signal to others to increase the pressure. What followed was the
ultimate in nail biting stuff. An amazing total of 6 Athletes tied at 1 buoy on
the 11.25m / 38 off line. Before this rule tester could be resolved, the best
rose to the top. With just five Skiers to go, Italy’s Marina Mosti brought the
home crowd to their feet with the best score of the day of 3.5 buoys on the
same 11.25m line. USA specialist Jill Knutson, almost took this lead away but
had to settle for 3 on 11.25m / 38 off.
Australia’s Emma Sheers was feeling quite ill the night before – but
being the top Athlete she is, she called on all that hard earned experience and
achieved a tie with Marina Mosti for the lead. This meant that Emma, Marina and
Jill Knutson (USA) had secured their Finals places – and so had Natalie Hamrick,
Kristi Overton Johnson (USA), Rhoni Barton (USA) and Natalia Anisimova (Russia).
Now it was back to the rule book
because we had the top seven places decided – but the next 6 Athletes were
still all tied at 1 buoy on the 11.25m line – and we only had 5 places left for
the Finals. So, it’s run-off time !
Now the tension
was about as high as in the coming Sunday’s Finals. This time around they all
got on to the 11.25m line again, with Finals places secured for Mariana Ramirez
(Mexico), Clementine Lucine (France) and Cristina Muggiasca (Swiss). Two Finals
places remained – and just to keep the excitement going, Toni Neville
(Australia) and Karen Truelove (USA) tied at 3 buoys on the 11.25m / 38 off
line. Another run-off. This was a tough one because since Karen
Truelove is a Slalom specialist, she had to beat Toni Neville to secure her
place – or she would be out and the Skier on the bubble, Olga Pavlova (Belarus)
would be in. Karen got a hard earned 1
buoy on the 12m line – and Tony missed her gates on the same line ! Both got in and Olga had to watch in vain.
What a great event. This Final is going to be a real show stopper.
Now we finish up
the day with Men’s and Ladies Tricks. This was always going to be tough – with
49 Men and 39 Ladies chasing the 8 Finals places. In the Men’s event, 13 Athletes scored over 8000 points, and 5
got better than 10,000. Again, the Italian audience loudly cheered Marco Riva
with his score of 9470 points – just enough to make it through. The top three specialist superstars were as
expected – World Record breaker Nicolas LeForestier ( France) 11070, Cory
Pickos (USA) 10960 and Russel Gay (USA) 10710. Those Overall watchers were
delighted also to see success going to Oleg Deviatovski (Belarus) 10,290,
Aleksei Zarnasek (Belarus) 10140, Julio Javier (Argentina) 9930, Jaret
Llewellyn (Canada) 9800 and the young star Joel Wing (Australia) 9600. Expect to see some more 11000 scores and
higher in the Finals.
The Ladies
Tricks took us all the way to dusk on a warm sunny evening. Here the talented
Overall World Record holder, Elena Milakova (Russia) took the top spot with 7380
points. She was followed by Frederique Savin (France) 6800, Overall contenders
Angeliki Andriopolou (Greece) 6740, Rhoni Barton (USA) 6630, Marina Mosti
(Italy) 6480 and Regina Jaquess (USA) 6460. A total of 13 Ladies got better
than 6000 and many will improve further in the Finals when scoring safety will
not be a constraint.
The bi-annual
IWSF Congress was also in full flight in Biella today – a small town 50 Klm
away. Word has just reached us that our new President and Secretary General
have been elected and our congratulations go to Kuno Ritschard (Switzerland)
and Jeffry Armstrong (USA). They will join us on site here in Recetto tomorrow,
Friday, for Men’s Slalom and Ladies Jump. The conditions at this beautiful site
could well produce some history making performances – if the predicted rain
stays away. Fingers crossed time.
Des
Burke-Kennedy
Recetto
Italy