Waterski Journal N°12

6 Time to trick

Swiss Waterski Resort brings up another pro event, only now we are talking about tricks

8 Jon Travers - The MLCQ king

No one know this game better than JT

12 U17 - World Championships

Young folks for a big crown : world champion

18 Reflex Direct Contact

The futur is on with Reflex new plate system

19 TWBC Brand Leaderboard

The Waterski Pro Tour now credits ski manufactures through a team leaderboard

20 Skiers market place

Which ski did your favorite skier picked this season ?

22 27 and counting

Nate Smith just set another impressive record Wining 27 pro event in a row!

26 Breaking habits : let's change !

International coach Vincent Soubiron gives us some hints for breaking our habits and get new records

28 Lookbook

Some badass picture of our favorite sport

38 D3 NEO2 - A ski to get them all

Neo 2 is the last ski made by D3 and has already quite a nice record of pro wins thanks to Freddie Winter

40 Euro Tour - Euro Trip

During 5 weeks the best skiers on the planet traveled through Europe to 6 lakes for some incredible skiing

54 Pato Font - Above the limits

Onto the path of the trick world record breaker

55 The physics of waterskiing

Back to school with Benoit Lance to go through skiing with a physician state of mind

56 Portraits of the month

Slalom: Allie Nicholson

Jump: Freddy Krueger

Trick: Hannah Stopnicki

62 Waterski Pro Tour standings

Who are the best at waterskiing right now ?

66 Contact

Keep in touch and give love to our photographers and contributors

67 Thank you

You guys are awesome!

No doubt, the Swiss Waterski Resort has the right formula to organize a pro event. This year was no exception as they held the 9th edition of the Swiss Pro Slalom. It has always been an absolute banger in the game! The site is perfectly located in Central Florida, where most pro skiers live, and has perfect conditions all year long.

Clint Stadlbaur has always stated that his lake needs to be as perfect as it can be for every pass of the year.

This year a new pro event was born in April, but no slalomers were involved - only trickers! Fortunately, Vincent Stadlbaur knows the site very well and set up the best webcast possible with the Waterski Broadcasting Company. It was a full day of flips and ski lines. You might think it would be boring. Well, you would be wrong! They created a slightly different format from the usual preliminary and finals to a best of two-round qualifying for the finals. It was a success.

This new formula allowed us to see some more creativity, letting the trickers take risks in either the first or second round depending on their strategy. This was important because your competitors could make a big move in round 1 with an unusually “dangerous” big pass, making it difficult to stay conservative with a small “qualifying” run that usually puts you through to the finals.

As a result, we saw Pato Font tie his world record in the first round with 12,590 points, then not ski in the second round. While Joel Poland secured his finals spot with 12,100 points in the first round, but then decided to go big in the second round, starting with an outrageous hand pass. He did not quite complete his pass, but the strategy worked. Because he knew that he couldn’t achieve a world record with his hand pass, Joel decided not to ski his toe pass and returned to the dock to reserve some energy for the finals. This strategy paid off with a 12,010 point run in finals.

Here’s a breakdown of some of the trick scores from the finals. Matias Gonzalez, a young, rising star from Chile (U17 World Champion, 15 years old) was the first skier of the finals with two scores above the 11,100 points! How insane is that? It’s probably the highest cut in the history of the sport.

The women’s division had the same hype. Surprisingly, Giannina Bonnemann was the first out, although she had 8,580 points in the second round. The bigger surprise came from Kennedy Hansen, who earned a personal best in the first round (9370 points). Talking about high scores, the winner was none other than Erika Lang, with an astonishing 11,030 points. Neither Anna Gay’s (10,530 pts) nor Neilly Ross’s (9,950 pts) performances could match such a performance.

Shout out to Martin Labra, another young Chilean man (17 years old), who earned a bronze medal and first pro podium with a solid 10,780 points in the finals. Dorien Llewellyn finished second with a demonstration of consistency in all three rounds (11,230 pts).

And Louis Duplan-Fribourg showed his trick mates that he was not so far off from the world record, earning 12,300 points in round two, his highest score since achieving 12,280 points in the 2020 Master Last Chance Qualifier.

Masters is no longer an invitational tournament for the top pro skiers. You now have to qualify for it. Several tournaments offer a spot to Callaway Garden. The most famous one is the unique Masters Last Chance Qualifier, also known as MLCQ, which is always hosted by Jack Travers Waterski School, the temple of the sport in Groveland, Florida. It is also Jon Travers' home site.

The traditional MLCQ gave a spot to the best athlete in each discipline IF he or she also got a minimum score. For instance, if the required score is 4@10,25m (41off) for the men's slalom, the skier would have to win the event with a score of at least 4@10,25m (41off). If the skier won the event with 3@10,25m, then no ticket to the Masters.

The new format is interesting because there are now four tickets to the Masters, with no score limit and no backup score taken into account. This means that a five-way tie at the same tournament results in a runoff, no matter the backup score. This scenario happened this year in the men’s slalom; a guilty pleasure for fans.

Robert Pigozzi took his ticket straight away with 4@10,25m (41off). Then, five skiers ran 3@10,25m (41off) for only three tickets:

Adam Sedlmajer

Sacha Descuns

Jon Travers

Charlie Ross

Stephen Neveu

I suggest you take a moment to watch Robert Hazelwood's vlog on MLCQ (available on HO Skis Youtube Channel) to get the vibe there and watch the incredible skiing!