Moomba Masters 2004 - Melbourne - Saturday First today were the slalom semi's. Conditions were pretty good with only the current to worry about as the wind was very light. In the women's event 4 skiers out of the 6 would qualify for the final. The 6 qualifying skiers turned out to be Karen Truelove, Emma Sheers, Geraldine Jamin and Sarah Gatty Saunt. The men's slalom was a bit more eventful, with Jeremy Newby Ricci skiing first. He had an excellent first 3 passes, running 11.25m easily, proceeding to score 2.5 on the 10.75m line, better than any of the scores in the preliminary round. All the following skiers failed to run 11.25m with Chris Rossi scoring the next best score with 3.25 @ 11.25m. The last 6 semi-finalists were not due to ski until later in the afternoon, so Jeremy would have to wait until then, to find out if he was definitely through to the final. Some of the trick preliminary rounds followed the slalom, the first 6 women trickers first. The highest score here was 6290, ski'd by Michele Briant. The remaining 6 skiers are not due to ski until Sunday, so we will have to wait to see what will happen then. All of the men skied in their preliminary round, this went totally as expected with the last 8 skiers all qualifying for the semi's. The top score being 9850 by Joel Wing, 20 points ahead of Nicholas Le Forrestier. The overall finals were next, with the most exciting part being the jump event as usual. Clementine Lucine ski'd very well in all 3 events and won the overall, followed by Angeliki Andriopolou and Rhoni Barton. In the men's event, Joel Wing exceeded his preliminary trick score with 10,100, giving him a good start. Jaret Llewellyn jumped last and needed 62.5m to win. This he achieved on his second jump with 63.6m. Although not necessary, he went on to take his third jump and proceeded to break the course record with 67.2m. Jason Seels was second and Joel Wing third. During the day the wind had picked up, meaning the last 6 to ski in the mens slalom semi's had vastly different conditions to those of the first 6 at 8am in the morning. Jeremy Newby Ricci was waiting patiently on the bank, to see if his score from the morning was enough to get him through. The boat drove up and down the course on a few test passes, which turned into quite a lot of test passes. Then an announcement came that there was a problem with the boat and that rather than make the skiers wait indefinitely, the second half of the semis would be postponed until Monday morning. All the skiers I'm sure will have been very relieved by this, with the possible exception of Jeremy Newby Ricci. At least now, the conditions for the rest of the semi-final are more likely to be similar to those of the first half. Sunday is to be a quieter day, with the skiing starting at 2.30pm, with a much more eventful final day on Monday to look forward to. Report by Jill Howard