Sportcal | News | Battle of the Giants at Waterski & Wakeboard World Cup March 16/18 in Mandurah Western Australia

Waterskiing - 22 Feb 2012

Battle of the Giants at Waterski & Wakeboard World Cup March 16/18 in Mandurah Western Australia

The EYRES Action Sports Games, scheduled for March 16/18 in Mandurah, promises to be one of the most exciting World Cup challenges for some time. Apart from the anticipated 100,000 spectators on site, this 33rd Stop of the Waterski & Wakeboard World Cup series has already received confirmed entries from every relevant current World Champion and World Record holder in Waterski Jump and Shortboard and also in Wakeboard. Add to this the 3,000 hours of annual sunshine of Mandurah, and we now have the perfect combination to guarantee outstanding performances and great memories.

In Wakeboard, World Champions Harley Clifford AUS and Raimi Merrit USA must be hot favorites to dominate. They earned those titles in Italy last Summer. They were also elected 2011 Riders of the Year by the IWWF. Both won the World Cup Stop in Sarawak, Malaysia last season. Clifford added to this the Wakeboard World Cup title in Linyi, China, in September. As this Mandurah Stop will be the first major event of 2012 for these World Cup Wakeboard champions, all eyes will be on Australia’s Amber Wing as the challenger. She took the World Cup title in Linyi, China, ahead of Raimi Merrit, and will push hard to show her home spectators who is the champion ! Past World Wakeboard Champion Andrew Adkison USA, who is always a serious contender, will be in Mandurah to challenge Harley Clifford’s dominance. Will we have two Oz Champions this time around ? It might just happen.

With two Waterski events included, Jump and Shortboard, again the world’s best athletes are already on this high quality entry list. Both current World Jump champions, Freddy Krueger USA and Natalia Berdnikova BLR, will test the Jump Ramp at speeds exceeding 100kph. Krueger and Berdnikova also happen to be the holders of the current World Jump Records. As ever, there will be very strong competition. Krueger has had an outstanding career to date. Last season alone he had 10 podium successes, including 7 gold medal awards. He broke the World Jump Record seven times since 1999. Berdnikova is also on a roll. Although her new World Jump Record set last October was her first in the Jump discipline, she also set an Overall World Record. She has so far broken the Shortboard World Record three times. Snapping at her heels in Jump in Mandurah will be Australia’s young sensation Jacinta Carroll from Geelong and Denmark’s star Maj Lund Jepsen. This will be another spectacular battle in the EYRES Action Sports Games.

Finally, the Shortboard event will certainly be a thriller. Here we will have current World Champion and World Record holder Aliaksei Zharnasek BLR and again World Champion Natalia Berdnikova BLR. Zharnasek set the new World Record last April at 12,570 points and is in top form. He took the Record from Nicolas LeForestier FRA who is pushing hard to recover from injury in time for Mandurah but might not make it. Berdnikova will be even more focused than ever as she lost the World Shortboard Record to Clementine Lucine FRA just five months ago. She will be totally committed to getting it back again. Bring your cameras to this World Cup stop and you will certainly capture some very special moments.

This 33rd World Cup Stop will be the first for Mandurah in launching its four-year agreement with the International Waterski & Wakeboard Federation. Eventscorp, the events division of Tourism Western Australia, has the full support of Tourism Minister Kim Hames and the Minister for Regional Development, Brendon Grylls, in the staging of this World Cup Stop. MasterCraft will again be the Official Boat Sponsors and they too will celebrate their 33rd time in doing this ! The EYRES Action Sports Games will also feature BMX, Skateboarding and Freestyle Motocross, with a shootout between Australia and New Zealand.

The World Cup Timetable for the weekend of March 16/18 will be circulated shortly, together with the Webcast arrangements for our global World Cup fans.

CONTACT : Des Burke-Kennedy, Media Chairman, International Waterski & Wakeboard Federation

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