Friday 19th September - World Waterski Championships 2003 - Florida Today was the hottest day so far at these championships. Most people sought the shade even if it meant the view of the course was not as good as it could be. The day started with series 3, 2 & 1 Mens Slalom. The wind had dropped a lot, now being just a light breeze with a headwind on the first pass. Series 2 progressed with most of the skiers getting into 11.25m (38 off) and 5 skiers getting into 10.75m (39 off), the best being Joel Wing with 3 @ 10.75m. This score turned out to be quite significant. Andy Mapple was first out in Series 1, he started on the 13m (32 off) line and then opted up to 11.25m, which he easily ran, the surprise came then as he only managed 3.5 @ 10.75m - half a buoy less and he would have been in the runoff! The best score of the day was 2 @ 10.25m scored by Chris Parrish, Jeff Rogers and Jamie Beauchense. Will Asher was the only other skier to get into 10.25m scoring half a buoy. Mike Kjellander, Andy Mapple and Steve Cockeram all went through, leaving a run-off of 7 skiers for 5 places (all scored 3 @10.75m). The runoff eliminated Drew Ross and Wim De Cree, leaving Glenn Campbell, Ivan Morros, Joel Wing, Doug Ross and Fabio Ianni to go through to tomorrow's final. For the jump event, the best place to watch was in the water. There wasn't much shade near the jump, so the coolest place was in the water! Ladies jump series 2 and 1 progressed well with the best jump being 53.6m by Emma Sheers, this distance being 4m further than the second best jump of 49.6m by Marina Mosti. Due to the time constraints, the series 3 mens jump was postponed until Saturday morning, this left series 2 and series 1. Series 2 started with a slight tailwind on the ramp. Thomas Fenzl jumped 64.4m, which proved to be enough to get into the final. With perfect timing, just before the start of series 1 the wind changed, providing a desirable headwind on the ramp. Freddy Krueger started the series with an excellent 66.7m, only Jaret Llewellyn (67m), Jimmy Siemers (67.8m) and Scot Ellis (69.6m and a new world championship record I believe), jumped further. Gregory Moulin had a spectacular crash on his third jump, but amazingly, and fortunately, managed to climb onto the rescue boat unhurt. The jump event finished around 7pm, being the latest finish of the championships. The sky clouded over towards the end of the day with a few spots of rain, but nothing that affected the skiing. The forecast suggests that there may be some thunderstorms arriving, hopefully, they will stay away from the Swiss Ski School! Report by Jill Howard