World Disabled Water Ski Championships

In very rough water conditions the British Disabled slalom finalists skied their way to five gold medals and a sliver at the World Disabled Water Ski Championships in Melbourne, Australia.

Debbie Cummings secured gold in the Women's arm category with 5 buoys at 46kph whilst Viv Orchard comfortably out skied America's Camie Ogren for the gold in the Women's leg discipline. Seated skier Adeline Fahey overcame challenges from Sweden's Elsie Anderson and America's Keri McMurty with a score of 2 buoys at 52 kph in the MP3 category to make it a hat trick of golds in the women's slalom.

Favourite for the Men's MP3 seated slalom was USA's Mark Turner who had a comfortable lead in the first round. Britain's Mike Appleford had other ideas however setting the American a target of 1.25 buoys at 37kph. Turner looked good on the 34kph pass but coming back at 37kph could not get his ski out near the second buoy to equal Appleford's score to hand the 29 year Glaswegian his first major title.

Chris Mairs could not match his first round performance when he equalled the world record but still took gold in the V2 category for blind skiers. To top off the team's slalom performance Allan Pettigrew took the silver in the Men's MP2 with a personal best of 4 buoys at 52kph

After the slalom the wind picked up and conditions became unsafe to run the Jump finals, the medals for these being decided on the first round scores for the event which saw Debbie Cummings and Adeline Fahey add to their gold tally with Alan Pettigrew picking up a bronze.

Cummings, Orchard and Fahey achieved a clean sweep of all the medals by also picking up the Overall titles and the team, despite having only 6 skiers in each event against the 14 skier squads of America and Australia, also took the prized team title.

World Disabled Water Ski Championships - Results

Women's Slalom Results

A Category
1 CUMMINGS, Debbie GBR 5.00/46/18.25

L Category
1 ORCHARD, Vivienne GBR 2.50/43/18.25
2 OGREN, Camie USA 4.00/28/18.25

MP3 Category
1 FAHEY, Adeline GBR 2.00/52/18.25
2 ANTONSSON, Elsie SWE 4.00/40/18.25
3 MCMURTY, Keri USA 4.00/28/18.25

Men's Slalom Results

MP2 Category
1 RAY, Joe USA 4.25/58/10.25 Inn
2 PETTIGREW, Alan GBR 4.00/52/18.25 Inn
3 CARLSSON, Jorgen SWE 2.00/52/18.25 Inn
4 CORMINBOEUF, Adrien SUI 4.00/46/18.25 Inn

MP3 Category
1 APPLEFORD, Mike GBR 1.25/37/18.25 Out
2 TURNER, Mark USA 1.00/37/18.25 Out
3 JONSSON, Kenth SWE 4.00/52/18.25 Inn
4 RIVA, Claudio ITL MP3 2.00/49/18.25 Inn
5 BENKER, Roland GER 1.50/43/18.25 Inn
6 PRUNTY, Eamon IRL 1.00/43/18.25 Inn
7 ARMSTRONG, Alan AUS 1.00/31/18.25 Inn

V2/3 Category
1 MAIRS, Chis GBR 4.50/31/18.25 Aud

Women's Jump

A Category
1 CUMMINGS, Debbie GBR 18.2

L Category
1 ORCHARD, Vivienne GBR 8.9
2 OGREN, Camie USA 2.0

MP3 Category
1 FAHEY, Adeline GBR 14.1
2 GLASSING, Stephanie USA 13.1
3 SMITH, Denise GBR 12.9
4 MCMURTY, Keri USA 10.8

Men's Jump
1 FINE, Aric USA 19.2
2 CORMINBOEUF, Adrien SUI 16.6
3 PETTIGREW, Alan GBR 15.2
4 RAY, Joe USA 14.1
5 WINTLE, Scott AUS 11.8

Team Championship

1st Great Britain 13517.8 points
2nd United States of America 12053.8 points
3rd Australia 10544.3 points