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23rd July 2006
Today started with the girls slalom with Marion Costard FRA taking an early lead with 1.25 @ 12.00m which she held until skier number 10. Evdokia Liakou GRE went out and just beat the score with 2.00 @ 12.00m. Ambre Franc FRA could not improve on this and it was left to Whitney McClintock CAN to take the gold by seven buoys scoring 3.00 @ 11.25m.
The boys slalom brought us some shocks; first off the dock was George Mayling GBR making a big improvement over his first round score. George held the lead with 5.00 @ 12.00m until skier number seven came out. Bojan Schipner GER ran the 12m pass and went on to score 3.00 @ 11.25m.
The first shock came next with Sandro Ambrosi MEX missing his gates on the 14m pass.
Next skier to run the 12m pass was Thomas Gilbert NZL but he could not match Bojan and scored two. Alex Anthony GBR battled through 12m to score 2.00 @ 11.25m matching Thomas. Second seed Louis Noguera ESP broke his ankle in the jump event yesterday so last off the dock was Taylor Pavur USA.
Taylor dropped in around buoy three on his first pass and that was it over.
Gold to Bojan Schipner GER with Alex Anthony in second due to a better prelim score over Thomas Gilbert NZL.
A French one/two in the girls tricks from Marion Aynaud scoring 7190 and Manon Costard with 6290 points. Third place went to Silvia Caruso ITA with 5840.
In boys tricks Herman Beliakou BLR needed to boost his overall points after a poor slalom performance. An amazing trick show by 16 year olds. Herman secured himself the gold with a massive 10 510 points. A full 1500 points ahead of second place Zdenek Kolman CZE with 8450. Bronze went to Adam Pikos with 7790.
Girls jump was won by Whitney and the boys by Zack Worden . Overall by Marion Aynaud and Alex Anthony.
I will post results and finish off the report later as I have to go to the closing ceremony.
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22nd July 2006
Saturday started off with Boys slalom, no real shocks. George Mayling GBR was the last of the qualifiers for Sundays final scoring 2.00 @ 12.00m. First and second were Taylor Pavur USA 2.00 @ 11.25m and Louis Noguera ESP with a personal best of 1.00 @ 11.25m.
A slip up by Hermon Beliakou means he misses the slalom final and puts a dent in his overall challenge. Worth a note was the performance by Roy Perdaen NED from series 2 scoring 2.50 @ 12.00m to put him in the final. Alex Anthony GBR put himself in pole position for the overall scoring 5.50 @ 12.00m to take 3rd place.
Unlike Friday, the heat was lower and there was a firm wind (tail for jump and 1st pass of slalom)
Girls tricks did see some major upsets. Series one skiers Petra Povolna CZE and Angela Delgado COL both failed to make the final twelve. Kate Pollock AUS took the last place in the final with 4230 points. Other quality scores from series two skiers includes 5000 from Erin Mielzynski CAN in 7th place and 5010 from Anna Buzina RUS in 6th place.
Top place went to Italian Karen Sergeeva with 6080 from Olivia McDonald USA with 6030 and Michale Briant AUS with 5820 points.
Finally a score of 3960 from Whitney McClintock CAN after a fall on the first trick of her hand pass saw her finish out of the final placings. Whitney, tipped to take all the medals in the girls events, may even miss out on the overall gold now. Whitneys coach Matt Rini was still confident and said, " She can still do it!"
With the wind still up the boys jump event went ahead, Fortunately the wind was not having too much effect on the early scores. Early leader, Mexican, Sandro Ambrosi leaped a best jump of 43.4m from a 5 foot ramp! Sandro maintained this lead well into series one. This jump gave Sandro a spot in the final finishing in 7th place.
The wind increased and set in around about half way through series 2 creating all sorts of problems with the skiers being blown about in the air.
With lese than five meters separating all 12 of the finalists this was an exciting and nervous time for the team captains. With Dakota Peterson USA finishing on top with 45.4m, last skier out Zack Worden USA needed 41.1m for a place in the final.
Lori Krueger was having kittens as Zack refused his first and second jump. On the third jump Zack performed under pressure to produce 45.0m to give him second spot. This caused a jump off for the remaining place in the final between two Brits, George Mayling and Alex Anthony. Alex had done the same as Zack and refused both his first two jumps.
In the jump off George went out first and landed both his jumps but not enough as Alex did a 41.5m first jump to secure his place in the final.
Last of all were the two girls left from yesterday Danielle Shipe USA and Whitney McClintock CAN. Danielle went out first to score 37.4m giving her a place in the final. Whitney then needed 33.3m, but refused her first jump. Second jump was 38.6m putting her in second place. Third jump was 41.3m putting Whitney in top spot.
The full set of scores are on their way to me, so I will post them in a while along with the overall and team scores so far.
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21st July 2006
Friday started off with the rest of the girls slalom with blazing sun again all day. Everything went just about to plan with 3.50 @ 13.00m needed for a place in the final. The only real drama was with Danielle Shipe from USA who took a fall round 2 on her first pass putting her in last place.
Whitney McClintock was the only girl to complete the 12m pass and went on to score 1.00 @ 11.25m. Ambre Franc FRA and Beatrice Ianni ITA came in second and third. When you look at the results, the first 12 in all events go through to the final.
Next up was the complete boys trick event. In the end it was a close run thing for the last qualifiers for the final some missing out by less than 100 points. Andres Torres took the last spot scoring 4940 points. An amazing score of 9860 points from Herman Beliakou BLR was easily enough to secure the top place by over 1000 points from Adam Pickos USA 8720 and Pierre Ballon FRA 8290 points.
The complete girls jump event was also scheduled to run today and with various problems it took two and a half hours to run the first 10 skiers and then over 6 hours in total. The event did not finish as it was stopped at 9.45pm when it got dark.
Things did not stop there as drink seemed to inspire one drunken parent to behave unacceptably shouting and swearing and kicking chairs about. Then a protest was submitted by the French team. The results do not show series 1 girls jump as it may have to be completely rerun.
Click here for all of Fridays results.
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21st July 2006
Last night we had the opening ceremony in the centre of Moissac in the ground of a beautiful old building.
Click here for all the pictures.
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20th July 2006
A very bright and warm day today, Thursday for the first day of the competition.
44 degrees the temp gauge showed on the way back from the site.
Today saw series 3 of boys and girls slalom and tricks. I have all the results of this here. Tomorrow is a busy day with the rest of the slalom and most of the jump.
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19th July 2006
A lot cooler today and at 4pm a storm came over, wind, rain thunder and lightning and put a stop to the practice.
The event starts in the morning with the lower end series of slalom and tricks.
Click here for the complete starting list for the prelims which is spread over three days.
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18th July 2006
Thursday will see the start of the 2006 World Junior Waterski Championships from Moissac in France.
I arrived here on Monday evening and today the temperature is near to 40 deg. This site is in great condition and just about ready for the start.
For those of you that do not know Moissac, the site is on a stretch of the river Le Tarn between the two bridges on the edge of the town.
The arena is protected on both sides by high trees and I can see the site from my room in the hotel on the back of the river.
British team looked good in training with some of the US team here and some stuck in Paris having missed connecting flights.
There is a wireless connection in the hotel, so we hope to be able to bring scores and reports each day. |
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