All blogs by month

Thanks


20 September 2011

Wakeboard World Cup – Linyi in China

High five!!

Just finished competing at the second stop of the Wakeboard World Cup Series in Linyi in China. There were 30 invited riders at this stop – twenty men and ten women – from 22 countries all over the world. This was another amazing event, really well organised with yet again thousands of spectators lining the shores. They built a whole new grandstand especially for the World Cup and they had an awesome opening ceremony where they had confetti guns and balloons….

In the Men’s quarter finals there were four heats of five riders with the top two going through, Unfortunately, I didn’t make it through, it was Harley Clifford and Massi Piffaretti (which I was stoked about) who got to the semi finals. I had a second chance in LCQs  and ended up in a tough heat with top heavy hitters  Nick Jones (USA) and Nikita Martianov (RUS). Being last off the dock I had the advantage, or disadvantage in this case, of watching them. They both rode really sick and Nikita got himself easily into finals. Nick went out then and stuck a heel and toe 7 amongst other high end tricks. This really put the pressure on me. Then with an early fall on a whirly 5, I gave up all hope and went for it. I managed to stick a backside 7 and a front mobe 5 which I was chuffed with and this gave me the ever so slight edge over Nick and I got through to the semi finals!

As pumped as I was to make it to semis, I was more stoked to have gotten there doing one of the best rides that I was capable of doing. In semis there were three heats of 4 with the top two in each going through to Finals. I was up against Andrew Adkison, Daniel Powers and Marcello Giardi from Brazil.  I was first off the dock and rode pretty well standing my pass and sticking a whirly 5, heelside and toeside backside 5s. Unfortunately this wasn’t enough to take out Daniel Powers who stuck a backside 5 and a toe 7 as well as his fellow American Andrew Adkison. However, I was so stoked to make joint 7th again and was able to relax and enjoy the finals.

Once again, following some killer riding, it was Harley who took gold, followed by Andrew Adkison in second and Daniel Powers in third. Lucas Langlois from France took fourth place followed by Sam Carne and then Nikita Martianov in sixth. In the women’s first place was taken by Amber Wing with Raimi Merritt and China’s Chen Li Li taking second and third spots.

All in all the World Cup stops were an amazing experience and I was stoked to have got as far as I did on my first time.

Full results are here http://www.waterskiandwakeboardworldcup.com/news