Andy Mapple OBE equals World Record. Britains own Andy Mapple today equaled his own Slalom Planet Water Ski Record at the Princes Pro-Am Tournment, in Ashford Middlesex. Andy who will be 40 this year was recently awarded his OBE and clearly demonstrated why he is still at the top of his sport after over 20 years. After winning his 1st World Championships in 1981 at Thorpe Park he has been victorious a further 5 times in this bi-annual event and broken the World record an amazing 10 times. He is acknowledged the World over as the greatest Slalom Waterskier of all time and is still going, we wait to see what this athete, who is clearly from the Steven Redgrave mold can produce in the final day at the Princes Club. He learned to ski before he could swim! A native of Preston, Lancashire in England, Mapple comes from a family that thrived on competition. A "rally" racer with a championship record of his own, Andy's father had a profound impact in shaping his son's desire to win. The cold climate of Great Britain delayed Andy from learning to ski until he was 13...just before he learned how to swim! In no time he was competing, and was selected for the British National Team when he was just 18 years old. But that wasn't good enough for Mapple. In that 1981 season, he went on to win his first of two World Championship titles. He soon moved to Florida to train and compete with the U.S. athletes, who were dominating the slalom event at the time. There, his career began to soar. Mapple captured the prestigious U.S. Masters title for five years in a row between 1984 and 1988. In 1989, he then began to dominate the U.S. pro circuit, snatching up eight event titles and shattering the World Record three times in the process. But, Mapple still didn't stop. He went on to win the professional crown in each of the last five years. Many believe consistency is the measure of success in sport. It's an appropriate adjective here, considering Mapple has held a tight grip on the #1 spot of the World Ranking list every year since 1985! by Jeremy Newby-Ricci and AndyMapple.com