This years nationals were going to be hotly contested with the selection of the Senior and Junior squads in contention.
Officials were in short supply due to commitments to competitions around the country however we were very grateful to Harry de Laat and Joost de Leyer from the Netherlands stepping in to provide us with a Chief Judge and Technical Officer together with Gill Hill, Robin Nicols, Barry Odell and Nicky Caine carrying out adjudications and organising everything.
With a practice session planned between 4.00 and 6.00 on the Friday night and most of the skiers stuck on the M25 it was going to be a tight squeeze to get all the skiers on the dock before the wakeboarders descended after 6.00 however most managed to get a pass in before it closed. A catastrophe occurred when one of the wires holding the jump ramp in position snapped and this saw the skiers helping site manager Jez Marston then dive under tons of weed which seemed to be growing at an alarming rate around the lake to get the ramp in position for the morning. After some swimming, diving, grunting and groaning this was achieved but there were some concerns over the state of the weed on the approach to the ramp as all who had been in the water knew when trying to swim to the side which was impossible without improvising a turtle type movement over the weed to get anywhere. With the jumpers keen for no hold-ups a small contingency carried out a clandestine operation during the night to reduce the weed level however with lack of illumination and clothing this failed but produced some hilarious results with photographic evidence available on request.
A glorious sunrise prepared us for a feast of skiing and 26 slalom skiers started on the dock for the first qualifying round. Four Dutch squad skiers were invited to participate and Terry, Nicky, Tamara and Rico from Lavrijsen started the proceedings. Some of the skiers, myself included did not realise that the first qualifier was as it states a qualifier, so only one chance to get into either the open or senior finals and six of the men failed to get a pass on this first round! However some excellent performances on short lines by Aaron Farley and Stuart Marston provided a show for the spectators and Aaron managed to just pip Stuart in the final to take first place after getting a rerun on his final pass with 2.00@58/12m.
The most notable performance in the men's slalom was by newcomer Nathan Taylor from Skegness who hadn't even skied before May and came here on his first Nationals to claim 3rd in the men's open and win the junior boys overall title an amazing feat.
In the Ladies final Debbie Fowler skied into short lines to take first by one buoy just ahead of Charlie Lambert with Jacky Burnett in third.
The junior boys final saw Sol Fletcher take the title just ahead of Nathan Taylor with Marc Bradbury coming in third.
The junior girls final saw Charlie Lambert again ski into short lines to take the title with Sara Roberts in silver position.
The senior men's final saw six skiers battle it out with Aaron Farley taking the title with 3.00@55/11.25m ahead of Jerry Brown in second and Steve Hamblin in third.
The trick skiing event saw some personal bests with flips and turns landed for some for the first time in a major competition. Stuart Marston took the men's open with 3500 points and Aaron Farley the senior title with 2650, Sara Roberts got a personal best to win both the ladies open and the junior title but newcomer Nathan Taylor took the junior boys title with 640 points.
This is the crowd-pleasing event and with the best of the cable jumpers competing today some big distances were expected.
On the 5 foot ramp the Junior titles were won by Sara Roberts and Nathan Taylor with Sara providing the best stack of the day on her second jump when she came of the ramp on her heels and performed a neat back flip, Sara also won the ladies open with 23.6m. Mark Powley jumped a respectable 44.8m to take the open and senior title with Ben Morgan and Damon Bull both snapping at his heels with 44.2 and 43.9m. Jerry Brown came second in the seniors and fourth in the men's with a sound 41.9m.
The men's open title was taken by Stuart Marston with Jerry brown runner up and the Ladies open and Junior girls title were both won by Sara Roberts with Jacky Burnett coming second in the ladies overall and winning the senior ladies title.
Nathan Taylor was the junior boy overall champion.
1.Aaron Farley 1.Stuart Marston 1.Mark Powley
2.Stuart Marston 2.Aaron Farley 2.Ben Morgan
3.Nathan Taylor 3.Steve Hamblin 3.Damon Bull
1.Aaron Farley 1.Aaron Farley 1.Mark Powley
2.Jerry Brown 2.Steve Hamblin 2.Jerry Brown
3.Steve Hamblin 3. Mark Powley 3. Steve Hamblin
1.Debbie Fowler 1.Sara Roberts 1. Sara Roberts
2.Charlotte Lambert 2.Jacky Bernett 2. Sarah Wilson
3.Jacky Bernett 3.Sarah Wilson 3. Jacky Bernett
1.Jacky Bernett 1.Jacky Bernett 1. Jacky Bernett
1.Charlotte Lambert 1.Sara Roberts 1. Sara Roberts
2.Sara Roberts
1.Solomon Fletcher 1.Nathan Taylor 1. Nathan Taylor
2.Nathan Taylor 2.Solomon Fletcher
3.Marc Bradbury 3.Marc Bradbury
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