Britain's Andy Mapple wins Princes ProAm, his penultimate event He may be retiring from competitive water skiing after next Saturday's World Cup at Thorpe Lakes but, to the very last, Andy Mapple is still adding to his career wins. It came down to the Master against the Young Pretender in the head to head final of the Princes ProAm, held at the west London club. After 3 rounds of qualifying the top 8 skiers moved in to the quarter finals with these setting up semi final ties of Wade Cox (USA) against Andy Mapple (GBR) and reigning ProAm champion Will Asher (GBR) against Chris Parrish (USA). Both Asher & Mapple kept up their records of completing the 10.75m pass in every round of the event to move through to the finals. Asher set Parrish the full pass on that 10.75m rope length which Parrish then completed but could not retain the handle through the exit gates to be able to continue. Mapple set Cox the same target but the American could only get to buoy 4.00 ensuring that Mapple progressed to another final of an event he originally helped the organisers establish on the World calendar in 1997. The final very much reflected the strength of British water skiing. 6 time World Champion Andy Mapple has spearheaded the British squad's dominance in the sport. Mapple's achievements were behind the sport receiving lottery backing through the UK Sport and Sport England World Class programmes that have assisted the development of the next generation of water skiers who are already taking on the world. One of those skiers is Will Asher who already holds the World Under 21 title and won the silver at the last World Open Championships. All of the 6 skiers on the Performance programme are ranked in the top 6 in the world. Asher chose to go first in the head to head final and set the pace through the rope lengths. Both skiers maintained their records for the event on the 10.75m pass by rounding all 6 buoys for the 6th time that weekend, an incredible feat in itself. Coming back in on the 10.25m line Asher could not get his ski out and round buoy one meaning that, without needing to set for buoy 2 Mapple just had to pull hard to coast round buoy one for the title, which he did with ease for the title, his 164th career win at a major international event. So Andy will now move to Thorpe Lakes in Surrey next Saturday to look for that final title on the lake where he won his very first World Championships. The best in the world will again be there to challenge him. It promises to be both a great event and an emotional day for Andy and British water skiing as it says farewell to its greatest ever athlete.