For the past 12 months, Martin Labra’s world shrank to rehab rooms, gym sessions, and the distant whine of boats he could hear—but not chase—on the lake outside his home. Next week in Melbourne, the Chilean phenom finally gets it back.
After a knee injury forced him out of competition in early 2025, Labra has quietly rebuilt his form across record tournaments in Chile, posting multiple scores back over 12,000 points, including an equal personal best of 12,590 — the highest trick score recorded anywhere this year. Now the 19-year-old returns to the professional stage at the Moomba Masters, entered in both tricks and slalom and slated to appear earlier in the week in the event’s inaugural Under-21 competition.
It is a compelling return for one of the sport’s most promising young athletes, with the coliseum-like atmosphere of the Yarra River providing a potentially blockbuster backdrop for Labra’s comeback arc.
Labra had been a name to watch for several years — the most decorated skier in the history of the Under-17 World Championships, his four gold medals unmatched on the men’s side. But in 2024 he truly announced himself to the water ski world with a breakout season. Labra captured his first professional title at the U.S. Masters, then added another at the Botaski ProAm later that summer.
It wasn’t just the hardware. It was the composure — the unusual calm of a teenager skiing with the tactical patience of a veteran. Trick specialists took notice when Labra unveiled a new trick live in professional competition and reset benchmarks for the highest-scoring toe pass, pushing himself into the rarefied 12,500-point club and into quiet world-record conversations.
Speaking last July on the Chilean podcast Escala del 1 al 10, Labra described the Masters victory as one of the defining moments of his life.
“The Masters was a very, very beautiful moment and something I’ll never forget, I think, for the rest of my life,” he said.
But Labra is not a one-discipline curiosity. While tricks remain his professional calling card, his rapid rise in jump and overall — where he ranked sixth in the world pre-injury — signaled broader ambitions. He closed his 2024 campaign with two finals appearances on the WWS Overall Tour, the résumé of an athlete expanding faster than most expected.
Then the trajectory snapped.
This time last year, Labra was riding the momentum of his breakout season. The calendar ahead was crowded: multiple professional stops, an Under-21 World Championships where he entered as favorite in both jump and overall, and his first Open World Championships with a credible shot at the title.
What followed was a familiar but still brutal reminder of elite sport’s fragility.
In training the week before the 2025 Moomba Masters, Labra’s season unraveled in an instant.
“It happened on February 27th… I fell jumping… my knee went inwards and I tore my cruciate ligament,” he said. “Definitely one of the hardest moments, I think, in my sporting career.”
The timing made it sting more.
“I think it hit me very hard, coming from such a good year as 2024,” Labra admitted.
Surgery followed. Then the long, quiet work of return.
Physically, the roadmap was straightforward. Mentally, it was not.
“I live by the lake, I hear the boats all day long,” Labra said. “Not being able to go to the lake… was getting me down, because I love being at the lake. I love this world and the lake life.”
In the early weeks after surgery, he relocated north to, in his words, “clear my head a little from all the bad things I was going through.” The reset helped. So did the infrastructure around him.
Few athletes are better resourced for rehabilitation. His father is a physical therapist who guided the early recovery phases. His mother, a Chilean representative and Pan American Games field hockey medalist, understands elite-sport pressure. And his stepfather — trailblazing Chilean professional jumper Rodrigo Miranda — knows exactly what it takes to rebuild a body and a season.
“Paso a paso,” Miranda posted — step by step. A mantra that has quietly defined Labra’s year.
For all the physical rebuilding, the more revealing work has been internal. Labra repeatedly circles back to the influence of his family in keeping his rapid rise in perspective.
“My family… that support I have from them is unconditional,” he said. “That’s what helps me stay grounded… because in the end, I’m just an ordinary person.”
The injury also created something elite athletes rarely get: time to recalibrate. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Labra had already chosen to remain in Chile rather than enter the U.S. collegiate system — a decision that, in hindsight, gave him unusual flexibility during rehabilitation.
“I think… being able to do your sport at high performance and study at a very good university, it was the best decision I could have made,” he said.
With competition temporarily removed, Labra leaned into structure. Gym sessions multiplied. University life became a second arena of focus. The routine, he admits, was not accidental.
“Now I try… to focus on recovery, on the gym, on studying,” he said. “I feel like I’ve also improved outside of it.”
There is a quiet maturity in how he frames the lost season — not as empty time, but as reclaimed margin.
“I’m taking advantage of this injury to do well with university,” Labra said. “If I had been competing, I could have traveled more and had less time… but now I can stay more up to date and get to know my friends and classmates better.”
That perspective was not formed in isolation. Labra points back to 2022 — a season that fell short of his own expectations — as an earlier inflection point.
“I think those were the most difficult moments of my career,” he said of that year’s struggles.
What followed was a deeper investment in the mental side of performance, including ongoing work with a sports psychologist, who remains part of Labra’s inner circle.
“He’s helped me a lot… especially in these difficult times,” Labra said.
If there is a defining thread in Labra’s young career, it may be an unusual comfort with the uncomfortable — the moments where momentum stalls and most athletes tighten.
“I love being under pressure,” he said. “The more pressure, the better for me.”
Melbourne will test that claim immediately.
His comeback event features one of the deepest men’s trick fields assembled: reigning world champion Matias Gonzalez, world record holder and defending Moomba champion Jake Abelson, former world champions Patricio Font and Dorien Llewellyn, plus the ever-dangerous Joel Poland.
There will be no gentle runway back.
Early signs out of Chile have been quietly encouraging — not just flashes of the old Labra, but a slightly more measured version. Training alongside the sport’s elite at the now-informal “trick camp,” he has worked methodically toward peak form.
As recently as November, his public tone was cautious: “Slowly getting back to it…”
Now the scores — and the body language — point toward readiness.
Even so, Labra frames the comeback with characteristic restraint. Asked what advice he would offer athletes facing setbacks, his answer was simple: “That first step is always the hardest. If you can’t do it alone, you look for help… lean on the people who love you.”
Moomba will not fully define Martin Labra’s return. Not yet.
A year on from the injury that stalled his momentum, Labra arrives in Melbourne with something simpler in mind: competing again.
And if his own words are any guide, he is exactly where he wants to be.
“I enjoy the nerves,” he said. “I know how to use them.”
One of water skiing’s most decorated slalomers will step away from the start dock in 2026 — for the best possible reason.
Whitney McClintock Rini announced this week that she and husband Matt Rini are expecting their second child, a baby girl due at the end of June. In an Instagram post, the five-time world champion shared the news with characteristic warmth and optimism.
“We’re so excited & we can’t hide this baby bump anymore!! 🤗🩷🤰🏼 Our Baby Girl is expected to arrive end of June! 🙏 Please pray with us for her to continue to grow & thrive to full term… and for a happy & healthy delivery. 🫶🏼 And I expect to be back on the water for the fall pro events of course!”
The timeline all but confirms McClintock Rini will miss the bulk — if not all — of the 2026 professional season, a notable absence in a women’s slalom field she has helped define for more than a decade.
If history is any guide, however, few would bet against a swift return. After the birth of her son Zane in 2020, McClintock Rini resumed competition the following season and proceeded to add double-digit professional victories while remaining a fixture inside the world’s top three.
Her résumé remains one of the most complete in modern water skiing: five world titles, a share of the world slalom record, and a long-running dominance at the Moomba Masters that has bordered on routine. Even in recent seasons, she has continued to win roughly one out of every three professional events she enters — a statistic that underscores both longevity and sustained excellence.
For now, the focus shifts away from buoys and back toward family life — a balance McClintock Rini has navigated better than almost anyone in the sport.
And if her own postscript is to be believed, the pause may be just that: temporary.
Every few years, someone tries to fix water skiing.
Not with a new fin setting or a better beveled edge, but with an idea that promises something bigger: relevance, engagement, growth. A way to make people care again, or care more, about a sport that for all its beauty and difficulty has never quite figured out how to keep casual fans engaged.
Launched in beta with slick AI-generated promos and a tagline that flirts unapologetically with existential dread (“Imagine a world without waterskiing”), the platform positions itself as a fantasy-style prediction game layered over professional events. Fans sign up, receive tokens, predict outcomes, and, if they’re right often enough, redeem rewards like ski gear, coaching, or experiences. No cash payouts. No betting slips. At least on paper, firmly on the safe side of legality.
The pitch is familiar, even compelling: sports grow when fans don’t just watch, they participate.
It’s hard to argue with that. Fantasy leagues transformed how millions consume football, basketball, and Formula One. Prediction games give meaning to mid-pack finishes, to heats that don’t involve the favorite, to the long, quiet stretches of a tournament day when only diehards usually stay tuned. In a sport like water skiing, where storylines are rich but exposure is thin, that extra layer of attention matters.
But water skiing is not football. And participation is not a neutral word anymore.
Almost immediately, the reaction split along predictable lines. Some laughed. Some cringed. Some signed up. Some recoiled at the whiff of gambling culture drifting into a sport that still prides itself on junior development, family lake days, and hand-me-down skis.
“Gambling will solve all our problems,” former Under-21 world champion Sean Hunter deadpanned on Instagram.
Others pushed back more earnestly. Loving skiing, they argued, should be enough. Turning outcomes into tokens felt unnecessary, even vaguely dystopian, especially when paired with a launch video that framed the app as a savior rather than a supplement.
To Waterski Predictor’s credit, their responses were measured. This isn’t meant for everyone. It’s optional. Think fantasy sports, not gambling.
That distinction matters. Legally, it matters a lot. As John Horton explained on a BallOfSpray forum following the launch, drawing on his own deep dive into the regulatory minefield, once cash enters the equation things get illegal fast. Tokens redeemable for prizes may be the only viable path for something like this to exist at all. In that sense, Waterski Predictor isn’t flirting with gambling so much as carefully stepping around it.
Still, perception lags legality.
The language of tokens, exchanges, and rewards carries cultural baggage now, whether the creators intend it or not. Crypto-bro excess, predatory betting apps, and the broader gamification of everything have left many people understandably wary. Water skiing, a sport already fighting to explain itself to the outside world, doesn’t need another thing that looks confusing or ethically murky at first glance.
And yet.
Scroll past the skepticism and you see something else: people laughing at the promo. Inside jokes landing. Fans debating formats. Old-timers recalling fantasy leagues from 25 years ago that handed out hats and T-shirts and somehow survived without ruining anyone’s soul. Curiosity, not just outrage.
You also see something water skiing rarely gets: conversation.
Not about federations or politics or declining participation numbers, but about pro events themselves. Who will win. Who might surprise. Which pass actually matters. That attention, fragile and fleeting, is the currency the sport has often lacked.
The deeper question, then, isn’t whether Waterski Predictor is good or bad. It’s whether water skiing can afford to be precious.
This is a sport that struggles to monetize viewership, to retain fans between rounds, to offer athletes sustainable careers. Anything that keeps eyes on the screen longer has value, even if it makes us uncomfortable at first. Growth rarely arrives in forms that feel pure.
At the same time, the discomfort shouldn’t be dismissed. Transparency matters. So does tone. Launching with apocalyptic framing that suggests this saves the sport invites backlash in a community that has seen enough silver bullets misfire. Water skiing doesn’t need salvation. It needs infrastructure, trust, and incremental wins.
Waterski Predictor could be one of those wins, if it knows what it is.
Not a replacement for loving the sport. Not a financial engine. Not a moral crusade. Just a thin, optional layer that gives fans another reason to stay through the last round instead of checking results later.
That, more than tokens or AI videos, may be the point.
Water skiing has never suffered from a lack of passion. It has suffered from a lack of experiments. Some fail. Some quietly help. Most sit somewhere in between, nudging the sport forward by inches rather than saving it outright.
Waterski Predictor probably won’t change everything. It might not even last. But it asks a question worth asking in 2026: how do we invite people not just to watch water skiing, but to care what happens next?
The answer, as always in this sport, will be complicated. That much you can bet on.
Water skiing’s longest-running professional event is set to return to the heart of Melbourne, as invitations have gone out for the 65th Nautique Moomba Masters International Invitational, scheduled for March 5–9, 2026 on the Yarra River.
The Victorian Water Ski Association has confirmed a deep and globally diverse field, featuring athletes from across the world and headlined by three reigning individual world champions, all of the 2025 men’s Waterski Pro Tour champions, and another rare Moomba appearance from newlywed world record holder Regina Critchley (née Jaquess). As ever, Moomba blends established stars with emerging talent, particularly from the Southern Hemisphere, where timing and travel continue to shape the competitive mix.
While some Northern Hemisphere absences reflect planning ahead to the 2027 World Championships, the overall roster promises no shortage of intrigue. From elite slalom and jump contenders to one of the strongest men’s trick fields assembled—led by Jake Abelson, Matías Gonzalez, Martín Labra, Joel Poland, and Patricio Font—the 2026 Moomba Masters once again looks poised to deliver five days of world-class competition at the centerpiece of the Melbourne Moomba Festival.
If 2025 was about rising performances and recalibrated ceilings, 2026 is shaping up to be about scale.
The upcoming season will unfold across three distinct professional tours, span five continents, and feature more high-level opportunities—and more complexity—than the sport has seen in years. For fans, it may be the most fragmented calendar in recent memory. For athletes, it could be one of the most promising.
At the center of the landscape sits the Waterski Pro Tour, still the backbone of elite slalom competition. Alongside it runs the four-stop WWS Overall Tour, continuing to elevate overall skiing with dedicated events in North America and Europe. And new for 2026 is the Nautique Water Ski World Series, a multi-year concept that begins this season at Botaski in July, continues through Rocky Mountain and the California ProAm, and carries momentum into the 2027 Moomba Masters and U.S. Masters.
It’s a fractured ecosystem—but not necessarily a broken one.
The downside is obvious: overlapping tours, different point systems, and a calendar that’s harder than ever for fans to follow cleanly. The upside, however, may be more significant. More tours mean more events, more prize money, and more chances for athletes to build sustainable professional careers. It also raises the stakes. Titles are no longer concentrated in one place. Rivalries can play out across formats, continents, and disciplines.
In short, 2026 may be messy—but it could also be healthier, deeper, and more competitive than any season this decade.
Below is the tentative 2026 calendar, with some details still yet to be finalized.
The International Waterski & Wakeboard Federation has taken another step in its slow recalibration of policy, voting to allow Russian and Belarusian youth athletes back into international competition.
Following an International Olympic Committee recommendation issued on December 19, 2025, the IWWF Bureau resolved that athletes from both nations will be eligible to compete in all IWWF-sanctioned youth events—defined as all divisions below Open—effective January 30, 2026. The decision applies to both individual and team competitions and permits participation under national flags and anthems, in line with standard IWWF event protocols.
It is a meaningful shift, even if a carefully bounded one. While senior athletes remain outside the scope of this ruling, the door is now fully open for juniors to contest titles and team medals, restoring pathways that had been largely closed since early 2022.
The move fits within a broader, sometimes uneasy evolution of the IWWF’s stance. After initially imposing a sweeping ban on Russian and Belarusian athletes following the invasion of Ukraine, the federation has gradually softened restrictions—first allowing limited participation under the IWWF flag, and now restoring full national representation at the youth level.
The IWWF emphasized that it will continue to monitor developments in Ukraine and review its position should circumstances change, underscoring the provisional nature of the resolution.
For Russia, the timing is notable. Just days after the IWWF announcement, the Russian Ministry of Sport granted water skiing “core sport” status in the Saratov region—the first such designation in the country. Symbolically at least, it marks renewed institutional momentum at home, even as international access cautiously reopens abroad.
As ever, the federation finds itself walking a tightrope between geopolitics and sport. This latest decision suggests a belief that junior athletes, in particular, should not be indefinitely sidelined by forces beyond their control—while leaving open the question of where, and how, the line will ultimately be drawn.
Florida Southern College has announced the appointment of Jason Seels as its new head waterski coach, ushering in a new era for one of collegiate skiing’s most consistent programs. Seels replaces Curtis Rabe, who steps aside after an influential 11-season tenure at the helm of the Mocs.
Seels arrives in Lakeland with one of the most decorated résumés in international jump skiing. He burst onto the global stage with a gold medal at the 1997 World Games and went on to win multiple professional titles, podiuming at consecutive World Championships in 2005 and 2007. A long-time standard-bearer for Great Britain, Seels is the joint most decorated men’s jumper in European Championship history, with 11 European titles to his name. In more recent years, he has continued to compete at a high level, finding success on the Big Dawg World Tour and at the Over 35 World Championships, where he claimed dual world titles in 2016.
Beyond the accolades, Seels is an experienced on-water coach excited to step into a larger leadership role. In a statement announcing his appointment, Seels said he was “fired up to take the FSC waterski team to new heights—building a strong, competitive program while developing athletes on and off the water.”
Seels succeeds Curtis Rabe, who guided Florida Southern to ten consecutive top-five finishes at the NCWSA National Championships and helped cement the program as a perennial contender. Rabe’s impact extended far beyond results: a Hall of Famer in the Florida Water Ski Federation, he brought decades of experience as a coach, official, and international competitor to the role.
As Florida Southern turns the page, the program does so with considerable excitement—and a deep foundation—heading into its next chapter under Seels’ leadership.
The international water skiing community is mourning the passing of Robert Wing, who died earlier this month, at the age of 68.
Wing was a deeply respected figure in the sport—an athlete, entrepreneur, commentator, and tireless advocate whose presence spanned decades and disciplines. Born in 1957, to Bob and Irene Wing, pioneers of barefoot water skiing in Australia, Rob was immersed in the sport from an early age and remained devoted to it throughout his life.
A versatile competitor, Wing participated across barefoot water skiing, tournament waterskiing, wakeboarding, and waterski racing. Even later in life, his passion never dimmed; he proudly represented Australia at the 2022 and 2024 IWWF World Over 35 Waterski Championships.
Beyond the water, Wing founded and led a globally respected wetsuit and water sports accessories company, Wing Wetsuits, becoming a trusted name throughout the industry. He was also a passionate supporter of the sport as a family-centered pursuit, generously backing athletes, teams, and events around the world.
Nowhere was his impact felt more strongly than at the Moomba Masters, where Wing served for many years as a sponsor, apparel provider, and iconic voice in the commentary box. For generations of fans lining the Yarra River, his calm, familiar commentary became inseparable from the event itself.
Tributes have poured in describing Wing as a true gentleman—warm, professional, endlessly generous with his time, and universally liked. As longtime colleague Des Burke-Kennedy reflected, “Everybody liked Rob… I can’t ever remember him having a harsh word to say about anybody.”
Rob Wing is survived by his wife Bronwyn, his children Joel, Amber, and Dominique, and his beloved grandchildren Atheniah, Xander, William, Jamison, Vance, and Audrey.
The International Waterski & Wakeboard Federation (IWWF) has named Joel Poland and Hanna Straltsova its 2025 Male and Female Athletes of the Year, honoring two seasons of near-total dominance at the sport’s highest level.
Both athletes entered 2025 as reigning IWWF Athletes of the Year. Both finished it as world champions, tour champions, and the clear benchmarks for elite jump and overall skiing.
For Poland, the season bordered on perfection. The Briton went undefeated in every professional jump event he entered, capturing both the World Jump title and the Waterski Pro Tour Jump Championship. He was equally untouchable in overall, sweeping the WWS Overall Tour for a third consecutive season without a loss. The year’s defining moment came at the WWS Fluid Cup, where Poland set a new World Overall Record—the eighth of his career—further extending one of the most extraordinary résumés the discipline has ever seen.
Straltsova’s 2025 was no less remarkable. The Eastern European claimed World Championship gold in both jump and overall, securing back-to-back world titles across the two disciplines. She also captured the Waterski Pro Tour Jump title, reinforcing her status as the most dominant women’s jumper in the sport. Most notably, Straltsova broke the longest-standing world record in waterskiing, eclipsing Natallia Berdnikava’s overall mark that had stood for more than a decade.
The Overall Athlete of the Year honors were selected by the IWWF Executive Board from the broader list of 2025 IWWF Skiers & Riders of the Year, announced December 29. Both Poland and Straltsova were also named Waterski Discipline Athletes of the Year, underscoring their supremacy within the sport’s flagship category.
In a season defined by rising performances and relentless competition, Poland and Straltsova stood apart—not just for what they won, but for how completely they controlled 2025. The IWWF’s recognition merely formalized what the results had already made clear: they remain the mark to beat.
Water skiing in 2025 was a year of rising performances and expanding possibility. Records fell, ceilings collapsed, and moments that once felt unimaginable became routine. From teenagers rewriting history to veterans redefining resilience, the season delivered a relentless stream of storylines that pushed the sport forward while constantly testing its limits. It was a year where brilliance arrived in waves, controversies lingered, and the level required to win climbed higher with every event.
Across the Waterski Pro Tour, WWS Overall Tour, IWWF world championships at every level, and legacy stages like Moomba and the U.S. Masters, the sport unfolded through breakthroughs, confrontations, and generational shifts. New rivalries ignited. Established orders were challenged. And in disciplines once thought to have plateaued, sudden surges forced a rethink of what elite performance truly means.
As we count down the most memorable moments of the 2025 season, this list captures more than just victories and records. It reflects a sport in full acceleration—deeper, bolder, and more competitive than ever—and the athletes who defined it when expectations were highest and the spotlight brightest.
There’s always a particular optimism baked into the first major tournament of the season. The days grow longer, boats are dewinterized, and spring fever sets in. In recent years, that role has belonged to Moomba. But in 2025, the season’s opening statement came a week earlier—and from an unexpected corner of the calendar.
The University World Championships returned for the first time since 2016, staged in Auckland’s Orakei Basin, salt water shimmering in the heart of the city. The “Collegiate Worlds” brought together student-athletes from five continents, blending future stars, established pros, and wide-eyed newcomers thrilled to wear national colors. There were personal bests everywhere. There was Aaliyah Yoong Hannifah making history. And then there was Austria.
What the four Austrians pulled off bordered on absurd.
Against a Team USA contingent 14 strong—including a stacked six-skier A-team—Austria arrived with just four athletes. One was a single-event skier. Another, their strongest overall threat, withdrew at the last minute. There were no alternates. No safety nets. In tricks and jump, one misstep would have ended everything.
Instead, every skier delivered.
Luca Rauchenwald won jump outright. Lili Steiner claimed silver in jump and overall. Nikolaus Attensam posted the top men’s slalom score of prelims, maximizing team points. And Dominic Kuhn’s bronze in tricks—behind a field loaded with world champions—proved decisive.
In the 80-year history of IWWF world championships, only six nations had ever finished ahead of the United States. Only five had ever won a team title.
Make it six.
Undermanned, unflinching, and utterly fearless, Austria didn’t just win Auckland—they announced themselves. And in doing so, gave the 2025 season its first unforgettable moment.
There was a time when 13,000 points in men’s trick skiing felt like a myth. A ceiling. A number whispered with admiration, then dismissed with realism.
Enter Jake Abelson.
On a hot June weekend at Ski Fluid in central Florida, the 17-year-old American became the first skier in history to cross the barrier, posting 13,020 points. When the IWWF ratified the score, it didn’t just crown a new world record holder—it confirmed that trick skiing had entered a new era.
The milestone was years in the making. For nearly two decades, progress at the elite end of men’s tricks had been incremental, almost stagnant. Then came a surge. Patricio Font reignited the discipline in 2022. Matias Gonzalez raised the ceiling with relentless speed and precision. Suddenly, 12,000-point runs weren’t exceptional—they were the price of admission. In 2025, every men’s professional trick event was won with a score north of 12K.
The race to 13K was on.
Abelson got there first—but only just. Gonzalez and Font were right behind, pushing from different angles: Font with ruthless hand-pass efficiency, Gonzalez with audacious toe speed. And while Abelson claimed the milestone, the season’s most compelling moment came later.
At the World Championships in Recetto, with titles—not records—on the line, Gonzalez edged Abelson by ten points. Ten. The smallest possible margin in trick skiing. A single freeze-frame separating gold from silver.
In that sense, 13,000 wasn’t the finish line. It was proof of how narrow the margins have become.
For decades, 10.25 meters—41 off—stood as men’s slalom’s final frontier. A pass reserved for the extraordinary, spoken about in reverent tones. By the time the sun set on the 2025 Travers Grand Prix, it felt like something else entirely: the new baseline.
At Sunset Lakes in Groveland, four different skiers ran 41 off a combined seven times, obliterating the previous record of four, set just two years earlier. It wasn’t an isolated spike, either. Across the back half of the season—World Championships, MasterCraft Pro, and now Travers—men’s titles have increasingly been decided at 9.75 meters (43 off). The ceiling didn’t just crack in 2025. It caved in.
Nate Smith and Charlie Ross had led the charge, but at the Grand Prix they were joined by Jonathan Travers and Freddie Winter, all four pushing through 41 and into rarified air. Winter went furthest when it mattered most, advancing to 43 and sealing both the event win and his first-ever Waterski Pro Tour season championship.
“This is the first season title I’ve ever won,” Winter said, emotion spilling over. “A year and a half ago I had a really terrible time, I hurt myself, and I worked really hard to come back… This one’s for everyone who helped me come back.”
The women matched the drama stride for stride. Regina Jaquess, Jaimee Bull, and Whitney McClintock Rini produced the first three-way tie at 41 off in waterski history, forcing a cold-start runoff at 10.75 meters. Jaquess prevailed on the water, but Bull walked away with the bigger prize—her fifth consecutive Pro Tour season title.
Seven 41s. Four skiers into 43. One unmistakable message: the sport’s limits are shifting, and fast.
Unfortunately, one of the most memorable moments of the 2025 season earned its place in this countdown for all the wrong reasons. The Under-21 World Championships in Calgary were meant to spotlight the sport’s next generation. Instead, they became a reminder that, at times, judging—not skiing—can define a championship.
Held at Predator Bay, the U21 Worlds delivered much of what the event promises: breakout performances, record scores, and glimpses of future world champions. But during the women’s trick final, the focus shifted abruptly from athletic brilliance to adjudication.
When Colombia’s Daniela Verswyvel had her reverse mobe—an 800-point, title-swinging trick—ruled no-credit, the reaction was immediate and explosive. Live chats lit up. Elite skiers voiced disbelief. Formal protests were filed in the aftermath by Colombia, Canada, and the United States. The call stood, awarding gold to Canada’s Hannah Stopnicki and leaving Verswyvel heartbroken.
To her credit, Stopnicki—a deserving champion who could easily have won the title without controversy on another day—handled the moment with grace, embracing Verswyvel in a tearful scene that captured both the beauty and brutality of elite sport. “I know the judges are looking at everything extra carefully,” Stopnicki said afterward. “I was just trying to be as clean as I could be.”
The controversy didn’t end with the medals. The IWWF World Waterski Council launched a formal review, with Chief Judge Felipe Leal concluding—supported by EyeTrick data—that the panel was “very strict but consistent.” The issue, he stressed, was an unusually high number of non-credit calls that left many athletes dissatisfied.
The fallout reached beyond Calgary. Ahead of the Open Worlds in Italy, the Council committed to judge clinics aimed at improving consistency and restoring trust.
In a week meant to celebrate the future, Calgary instead exposed a fault line the sport can’t ignore. Trick judging, for all its tools and systems, remains far less objective than we’d like to believe.
The 64th Moomba Masters on Melbourne’s Yarra River wasn’t just another stop on the pro circuit—it was the crucible in which a new generation of champions was forged. Across the festival’s six professional events, four were won by first-time champions, setting the stage for breakthrough seasons.
In men’s tricks, 17-year-old Jake Abelson claimed his first professional victory, topping the highest-scoring podium in history. Moomba proved the launchpad for a meteoric season: Abelson went on to win the three largest prize-purse events, break the 13,000-point mark, and finish 2025 as the sport’s most dominant trick skier, despite a narrow World Championships defeat.
Slalom followed a similar trajectory. Nineteen-year-old Charlie Ross secured his first pro title with veteran composure, then rode that momentum to two pro wins, seven top-five finishes, U21 World Championships gold, and a silver at the Open Worlds—emerging as a genuine threat to Nate Smith and Freddie Winter for years to come.
The jump event crowned Joel Poland, returning from his Australian ban, as Moomba champion for the first time, launching an undefeated six-win season in men’s jump—a feat not achieved by any man since Freddy Krueger in 2006. Brittany Greenwood Wharton also claimed her debut professional victory, kicking off a season that included five podiums and a runner-up finish at the World Championships.
By the time the fireworks lit up Monday night’s jump finals, Moomba 2025 had delivered more than victories. Record-breaking performances, first-time champions, and a rising crop of elite athletes signaled a shift in the sport’s competitive landscape, reaffirming why the Moomba Masters remains water skiing’s ultimate proving ground.
The 2025 World Championships delivered countless historic moments, but perhaps none more electrifying than the men’s slalom final in Recetto—a showdown that redefined what elite slalom looks like.
When Nate Smith, one of the most reliable closers in water skiing history, posted one at 9.75m (43 off) skiing fourth off the dock, it seemed the title was settled. But over an hour later, 20-year-old Charlie Ross left the dock and matched him—forcing a sudden-death runoff for the world championship. For the first time in World Championships history, two skiers had to attempt 10.25m (41 off) cold, with gold on the line.
It was a generational collision. Smith, the standard-bearer of modern slalom. Ross, the breakout force of the year. Smith prevailed in the runoff, but the result felt secondary to the message: the gap had closed.
“I’ve never even tried 41 off the dock in practice,” Smith admitted afterward. “A lot goes through your head… but yeah, I’m pretty happy.”
The drama didn’t end in Italy. Weeks later, at the very next pro slalom event, Ross and Smith found themselves locked together again—tied once more at 43 off. Another runoff. Another razor-thin separation. Different venue, same script.
Back-to-back ties at the hardest line length in the sport, across two of the biggest stages of the season, felt less like coincidence and more like a turning point. Smith still claimed the crown, but Ross had firmly announced himself as his equal.
In a season defined by record-breaking depth and shrinking margins, no moment captured water skiing’s new reality quite like this one: the champion tested, the challenger confirmed, and a rivalry forged buoy by buoy at 43 off.
If 2025 has a defining rivalry, it has to be Erika Lang versus Neilly Ross. Lang started the season seemingly untouchable, going undefeated across Moomba, Swiss Pro Tricks, and the Masters, reclaiming the world record from Ross, and setting the tone for a dominant year.
Ross, meanwhile, looked out of sorts early on, traveling the globe and honing her craft in a grueling schedule that included competing in the men’s field in Monaco. It took six pro events, but in Portugal she finally broke through, clinching her first win of the season and nearly matching world record form—a statement that she was back.
The rivalry erupted at Botaski. Lang set a pending world record in the prelims, only for Ross to tie the current record in the finals, forcing Lang to chase a second world record just to win. Every trick, every frame, every point counted. Ross’ victory marked her first major triumph in three years and signaled a shift: Lang’s dominance was no longer assured.
The drama carried into the World Championships in Recetto, where both women arrived in red-hot form. Once again, victory was decided by a hair’s breadth, with Ross’ late-season momentum peaking at the perfect moment. Two athletes, pushing the limits of skill and precision, raised the standard for women’s trick skiing, making every pass a spectacle and every point a headline.
Lang remains one of the most successful women in the modern era, but Ross has proven she can match, and even surpass, the best—turning a personal comeback into one of the sport’s most thrilling storylines and taking women’s trick skiing to an entirely new level.
The men’s overall battle at the 2025 World Championships was the closest since 2009’s legendary three-way standoff, pitting Canada’s Dorien Llewellyn against defending champion Louis Duplan-Fribourg in a clash of precision, power, and pedigree.
The tournament began with a shock: Joel Poland, the sport’s most consistent tricker and early favorite, stumbled in the prelims. One front flip gone awry ended his flawless streak. Poland’s misstep became arguably the defining moment of the Worlds, a reminder that even the greatest can falter on the biggest stage.
From there, the men’s overall title came down to a hair. Duplan-Fribourg dominated tricks, setting the top score, and matched his personal best in slalom—but was penalized after a video gate review nullified his 10.75m pass, leaving him just 13 points behind Llewellyn. Every move counted.
Llewellyn, aiming to secure the title in the trick final, miscued on a landing and sank in disbelief, keeping the championship undecided. It all came down to jump. Duplan-Fribourg needed just 70 centimeters more to snatch the crown but came up short. In a performance echoing his 2021 duel with Joel Poland, Llewellyn soared 69.9 meters (229 feet), his best jump in years.
With that leap, Dorien Llewellyn followed in his father’s footsteps, claiming the World Overall title and cementing his place among water skiing royalty.
The 2025 World Championships proved that in overall competition, margins are measured in centimeters—and legends are defined by their ability to seize—or survive—the smallest of moments.
If Hollywood scripted a comeback, could it have been as dramatic as Freddie Winter’s at the 2025 U.S. Masters? Less than a year after shattering his femur in Monaco and missing most of 2024, the two-time world slalom champion returned to Robin Lake with history, expectations, and personal demons stacked against him. Winter’s fraught relationship with the Masters added another layer: banned in 2023 after an emotionally charged judging dispute, he had unfinished business on the event’s storied waters.
When the dust settled on Saturday’s brutal semifinals, the veterans were gone, leaving Winter as one of the few household names in the final. Last off the dock, chasing a lead set by Nate Smith, he hurled himself outside of three ball with trademark fearlessness. When the spray settled, Winter had done it—his first professional victory since his injury, his third Masters title, and arguably the most satisfying of his career. “Probably the most emotional moment of my life,” he said afterward. “So much self-doubt and fear I wouldn’t get back here over the last 10 months and 29 days.”
The Masters wasn’t just a singular triumph. It set the tone for the rest of Winter’s season: a string of consistent performances that saw him claim the Waterski Pro Tour title, rack up four pro victories (tying Nate Smith), and lead the year-end podium count. Though perhaps not fully back at 100 percent, Winter had reclaimed his place among the sport’s elite, proving that even after a potentially career ending injury, he could still define the men’s slalom narrative.
At Robin Lake, Freddie Winter reminded the water skiing world: the best stories aren’t just about victories—they’re about the journey to get there.
Across the sport, each new year seems to push performances to new and unprecedented heights. At many events, it has become commonplace for skiers to challenge—or even break—world records to clinch victory. It is, by almost any measure, a remarkable era to be a water ski fan.
One discipline, however, has largely resisted that trend. Jumping, with fewer events and shrinking opportunities, has seen its depth thin and top-end performances plateau. The concerning reality is that jump distances have not meaningfully improved this century and, by several metrics, have begun to decline.
All of which made what unfolded in Italy at this year’s World Championships all the more remarkable.
The tone was set in the opening days. Brandon Schipper arrived off a long-haul flight, skipped familiarization, and promptly unleashed the biggest jumps of his career. He wasn’t alone. Across the early rounds, season-bests and lifetime bests fell like dominoes. By week’s end, the cut to make the men’s jump final was the highest in World Championships history.
The finals delivered the crescendo. On the women’s side, personal bests stacked quickly—Maise Jacobsen and Aaliyah Yoong Hannifah both breaking 50 meters for the first time, with the entire top five clearing 170 feet. Brittany Greenwood Wharton, capping a career-best season, produced her longest jump in years to set the target. Hanna Straltsova, unflappable as ever, needed just two jumps to defend her title and complete another golden double.
Then came the men’s final—chaos, courage, and generational turnover wrapped into one shoreline spectacle. Eighteen-year-old Tim Wild, fresh off his first-ever 60-meter jump days earlier, flew 68.1m to announce himself on the sport’s biggest stage. Eight men cracked 220 feet. Schipper, giddy after another personal best, tapped home early, almost disbelieving what he’d just unleashed.
But the crown belonged to Joel Poland. His opening leap—72.1m, a personal best and new European record—froze the crowd. He passed his remaining jumps, gambling it would hold. It did. Ryan Dodd chased, cleared 70, and fell just short. With that, a three-decade lineage of North American jump dominance quietly ended.
In a discipline that had seemed stuck in neutral, Recetto felt like liftoff. Against every recent trend, jump delivered depth, drama, and distances that forced a recalibration of what was possible. Perhaps there is new life in water ski jumping after all.
Honorable Mentions
Aaliyah Yoong Hannifah’s triple-gold performance at the University World Championships, the first world titles ever won by an Asian competitor.
Tim Wild’s historic clean sweep at the Junior Masters—the first by a male skier in the event’s history.
Hanna Straltsova breaking the longest-standing record in the sport, by less than a third of an overall point.
Charlie Ross running 10.25m (41 off) at two different tournaments on the same day, breaking Will Asher’s 22-year-old collegiate record and tying for the lead at a professional event in the process.
Joel Poland setting yet another world record in professional competition to clinch the WWS Overall Tour season title.
Independent perspectives on tournament water skiing
