Author: Jack Burden

Tim Wild and Matt Rini at the 2025 Jr. Masters

Nautique Flips Decades of Tradition at Flagship Junior Events

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Nautique flips decades of tradition at flagship junior events

Tim Wild and Matt Rini at the 2025 Jr. Masters

Nautique announced that the under-17 division will be sunset at the Masters next year (image: @bearwitnesssportsphotos.)

By Jack Burden

Within all the excitement of Nautique’s recent launch of the Water Ski World Series, one of the most consequential changes slipped through almost unnoticed. The new Series isn’t just for the pros—embedded within it are junior and senior competitions, and a quiet but unmistakable message from Nautique: for Correct Craft, the future of the sport is under-21.

Junior competition has been part of water skiing since the sport started categorizing itself. In the United States, the Jr. Boys division debuted at the fourth National Championships in 1946, giving young talent a structured path upward. Hall of Famer Dick Pope Jr. won Jr. Boys overall at 16 in 1947, then jumped straight to the men’s ranks and immediately began piling up national and world titles. Internationally, Europe launched its under-17 Championships in 1964, and the Under-17 Worlds followed in 1986.

For eight decades, under-17 has been synonymous with “junior”—the proving ground where future superstars were minted.

Then Nautique quietly took a sledgehammer to it.

Hidden near the bottom of their Series announcement was the line that changed everything: the Junior Masters would no longer be junior. Under-21 would replace it entirely. And it wasn’t a one-off. Moomba is doing the same in 2026, adding under-21 alongside the pros and the under-17s. The three other World Series stops will follow suit. With a single keystroke, a whole generation was reassigned.

Nautique framed the shift as modernization—a cleaner system, a clearer pathway. But inside the sport, the reaction has been anything but unanimous. For many coaches and families, the change feels less like progress and more like erasing a pillar the sport was built on.

Corey Vaughn is one of them.

“Under-17 skiers are true juniors and can be seen as the future of the sport,” shared Vaughn, a career coach of over 10 years. “By the age of 20–21, some of the top talent has ‘arrived’ and there is too much potential overlap.”

Reflecting on his own pupils, he added that opportunities like the Junior Masters were “empowering experiences at a perfect time of life. Very motivating. I’m sorry to see that change.”

So why make the change?

We asked Nautique for comment. They didn’t respond. Their FAQ stayed polished and corporate, leaning on phrases like “greater access” and “modernization.” The most substantive line was their aim to give juniors “additional time and experience before transitioning to the pro divisions.”

Which points to a deeper tension: nobody agrees on when a young skier should actually turn pro.

Take Tim Wild. At 18, he might already be one of the best overall skiers in the world. In 2025 he swept the Junior Masters, won the under-21 Worlds, and took a podium at the open Worlds—and yet he’s entered only a single pro event in his life, a small backyard trick event. On paper he’s a world-class pro. In practice he’s an overqualified junior. And that makes sense. Juniors give him reps. They give him confidence. They give him hardware.

This is common among Matt Rini’s protégés. Joel Poland didn’t debut as a pro until 20, choosing to dominate juniors until he felt ready to step into a field of grown men. Rini—a Nautique insider—was almost certainly influential in pushing the junior age higher.

But contrast Wild with Jake Abelson. Same age, same generation, completely different trajectory. Abelson earned his first pro podium at 12 and has spent years terrorizing the junior ranks while poaching wins from adults. He’s proof that success is possible while keeping a foot in both worlds.

Water skiing is one of the few sports where you can win a junior title in the morning and beat the pros by dinner. It makes for great stories. It also makes the definition of “pro” feel slightly absurd.

“In broad terms, I really wish we had a stronger boundary between professional and amateur skiing,” Vaughn added. “I’m amazed by the talent of these kids, but I don’t think the likes of Jake Abelson and Charlie Ross should get their chance at winning open—where they clearly belong—and then go clean house in the amateur ranks. You wouldn’t let a 20-year-old drafted into the NBA also play college ball.”

Today, athletes like Abelson can hop divisions freely. Governing bodies, whose marquee events are amateur, have every incentive to keep things blurry.

That freedom is beautiful. But it’s also chaos.

So Nautique responded to the chaos with structure: create a middle zone. Build a bridge for the 18–21-year-old phase, the years when the sport tends to lose more athletes than it develops. Under-21 isn’t a new format—Europe has run Championships since 1990, the PanAm Games debuted it in 1996, and the IWWF launched under-21 Worlds in 2003. America is the outlier. This move brings the sport’s major events in line with a global trend.

A strong under-21 circuit could give young adult skiers something they’ve never truly had: meaningful pressure without inevitable defeat.

But every structural change creates winners and losers.

We asked Matteo Luzzeri—who has coached many of Europe’s top juniors—whether a stronger under-21 focus helps the sport.

“I don’t know,” he said after some thought. “Given the high level of youth skiers—Mati, Jake, Tim, Charlie, Lucas, Axel, Maise, Christhiana—the opposite argument could be made: Under-17 is more necessary now than it used to be.”

This is the paradox of governance: every attempt to help one group seems to hurt another.

Men’s tricks might not need an amateur under-21 division when half the pro podiums are filled by teenagers who can’t yet vote. But in slalom and jump? Different story. Outside of men’s tricks, only Charlie Ross won a pro event this year as an under-21, and only four under-21 athletes made a podium at all. For most young skiers, the pro ranks are a long stretch of non-finals, non-money, and non-momentum. A purgatory measured by rope lengths.

So maybe Nautique is right. Maybe this is the way to build the next generation of stars: give them battles they can win now, not scars they’ll carry later.

But it’s also possible the line between amateur and pro gets even fuzzier. That under-17 athletes lose the stage they once dreamed about. That the next breakout skier arrives later—and to a smaller spotlight.

The thing about format changes is that the impact doesn’t show up immediately. You feel it in three years, or five. When the under-21 podiums are deep—or empty. When pro fields get tougher—or thinner. When a 16-year-old who should’ve skied Robin Lake never gets the chance.

This is the part nobody can model.

Nautique has placed its bet on a vision of the future: a broader bridge, a longer runway, a gentler ascent. The logic is easy enough to understand. The consequences are not.

Change in water skiing rarely arrives with fireworks. It shows up in a rulebook tweak, an age cutoff, a field list. A small shift in gravity.

And suddenly, the next generation stands somewhere slightly different than we expected.

Welcome to the Multiverse

Inside the Water Ski Multiverse: Nautique’s Power Play Begins

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Inside the Water Ski Multiverse: Nautique’s Power Play Begins

Welcome to the Multiverse

A sport cut down the middle.

By Jack Burden

Welcome to the water ski multiverse. We now live in a sport where everything is happening everywhere, all at once.

Many will ask whether a tiny, fractured niche sport really needed a third professional tour. Whether further splitting an already bloated and incoherent global calendar is remotely helpful. Whether everyone couldn’t just sit down, act like adults, and pull in the same direction for once.

But like it or not, the future is here. And for many pro skiers, it’s spelled N-A-U-T-I-Q-U-E.

For years, Nautique has been the lifeblood of elite skiing. They held the IWWF towboat contract for a decade—pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into the federation. They kept the sport’s two crown jewels, the Moomba Masters and the U.S. Masters, alive through recessions, pandemics, and every imaginable governance meltdown. They’ve backed more athletes, more consistently, and more generously than anyone else.

And now, with their World Series of Water Skiing, they are injecting more money into professional skiing than all of the events on the Waterski Pro Tour and the WWS Overall Tour combined. It is the single largest investment in pro skiing in over twenty years.

Some in the sport cheered. Others felt the move like a bottle thrown across a quiet bar.

Because this is happening in a sport already stretched to breaking point. A sport where infighting and turf battles drain whatever oxygen remained. A sport that can’t agree on what its professional product is—let alone how to sell it.

The truth is that pro events have been propped up by private pockets, passion projects, and a politely disguised wealth-redistribution scheme in which the entry fees of lower-ranked skiers become prize money for the best. Everyone knows this. Everyone pretends not to.

In 2025, only ten skiers earned enough prize money to rise above the U.S. food-stamp line. Only five beat a full-time minimum-wage worker in Florida. That’s the economic reality behind the illusion of professionalism.

The Waterski Pro Tour was supposed to fix that. When it launched in 2021, it felt like a correction years overdue: athlete-led, narrative-driven, and structured enough to make sense of a notoriously incoherent landscape. For a moment, it worked. A wave of new events emerged. Those events gained legitimacy simply by being part of something bigger. Fans had a story to follow. Athletes had a season to chase.

But momentum disguised rot. The number of events rose, but prize money didn’t. More events meant less industry engagement, as limited marketing budgets were stretched thin. More weekends meant athletes couldn’t keep up. If you can’t make a living skiing—and you can’t—you need a day job. If you need a day job, you can’t chase tournaments across continents.

What emerged was a fractured field where some of the sport’s biggest names—Nate Smith, Regina Jaquess, Erika Lang—competed sparingly, their absences eroding the Pro Tour’s ability to crown a meaningful champion.

The Pro Tour needed substance, sponsors, and structure. What it had was a veneer: a brand lacquered over twenty-odd independent events, no real control over any of them, and no unified commercial product to sell.

Nautique is a company built on consolidation and control. It was never sold on the Pro Tour. They declined to include their flagship events from the outset and slowly leaned on the other events they sponsored to pull out one by one.

And so the World Series arrived. Without the IWWF towboat contract, Nautique needed a new platform to showcase their product—and suddenly had the budget to build it.

If the launch feels like a declaration of war, maybe it is. But history says progress rarely arrives without stepping on someone’s toes. In 1984, the Coors Light Water Ski Tour was born into a similarly scattered landscape. Over the prior decade, volunteers had pieced together a loose constellation of pro events across the United States. Then MasterCraft’s CEO launched an organized, centralized Tour. The American Water Ski Association fought it. They even tried to create a rival Tour in response. Some existing events joined the new Tour; others stayed outside and slowly faded.

We speak about that era with reverence now, but it was never universally adored. Long-running events went bankrupt under its competitive shadow. The Masters was dragged into professionalism kicking and screaming. Governing bodies resented losing control. And twice in the 1990s, athletes built rival tours out of frustration.

Yet through that conflict, skiing soared. The bull-in-a-china-shop approach taken by Rob Shirley and his successors put the sport on the map.

The parallels to Nautique’s move are almost uncomfortable. A single manufacturer launching a well-funded circuit. Independent events overshadowed. A governing body uneasy about losing control. A sport caught between centralization and chaos.

The significance of Nautique’s new tour isn’t the number of events. It’s the caliber. Five stops with genuinely deep prize pools and the full weight of Nautique’s athlete roster behind them will dominate the season. These will be the strongest fields, the highest stakes, the tournaments with consequences. That’s a new center of mass in a small universe. The kind of gravity that rewrites every orbit.

And for the Waterski Pro Tour, it means being nudged toward the cold edge of the map. Signs of strain have already surfaced: burnout among leadership, stalled content, a shrinking calendar. A schedule that risks becoming a regional slalom series, not a global showcase. Losing the sport’s most important events doesn’t kill the Pro Tour, but it guts its claim to legitimacy.

None of this means Nautique’s series is a revolution. Four of its five events already existed and were already among the sport’s highest-purse stops. The real change is the branding, the consolidation, and the clarity of intent. Nautique has given a name—and a narrative spine—to the shadow circuit they’ve been running for half a decade.

The danger isn’t Nautique doing this. It’s the sport doing nothing else.

Because adding more events with prize purses that barely cover travel isn’t a strategy. It’s noise. Nautique wants fewer, bigger, richer. Quality over quantity.

Well, that’s not exactly true either. Nautique’s goal is simple: sell boats. They believe the best path to that is a closed circuit they control—one built around their pros, aspirational juniors, and even a revived Big Dawg series.

Time will tell how long the sport can survive with three competing tours. Whether the Waterski Pro Tour can stage a comeback. Whether Nautique’s World Series can capture fans’ imagination. Where the WWS Overall Tour fits in any of this.

But this is the part where someone usually promises that competition breeds innovation, that conflict is healthy, that chaos is just the prelude to clarity. Maybe. But it’s just as possible we’re watching the sport split into its separate realities for good—each with its own logic, its own loyalties, its own gravitational pull.

Nautique has drawn its line. The Pro Tour is wobbling on its axis. The rest of the sport is left choosing which version of the future it wants to believe in.

That’s the multiverse we live in now.
And like any multiverse, only one timeline survives.

Regina Jaquess slaloms at the 2025 Travers Grand Prix

2025’s Unofficial Professional Water Ski Rankings

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2025’s Unofficial Professional Water Ski Rankings

Regina Jaquess slaloms at the 2025 Travers Grand Prix

Image: @bretellisphotography

By Jack Burden

Another season of the Waterski Pro Tour has drawn to a close, delivering 10 events across six countries and more than $300,000 in prize money. With its mission of weaving a season-long narrative by uniting standalone professional tournaments under one banner, the Pro Tour has largely been a resounding success. Much like the glory days of the Coors and Budweiser U.S. Pro Tours, the goal has been to elevate a season title into one of the sport’s most prestigious prizes.

But the full story is more complicated.

For the fourth straight year, the sport’s two longest-running and most lucrative tournaments—the U.S. Masters and Moomba Masters—opted to remain outside the Pro Tour. The Nautique-sponsored Botaski and California Pro Ams also sat out, as did smaller events such as the Fungliss Pro Am. That left the Pro Tour as the centerpiece of the calendar, but not the whole picture.

So we asked the question: what would the standings look like if every major event was counted, much like the old IWWF Elite Rankings once did? Using the same points system as the Pro Tour, here are the Unofficial Professional Water Ski Rankings for 2025—a more complete view of who really owned the season.

Slalom

At first glance, little changes in slalom. But the drama intensifies once the Fungliss and the California ProAm are factored in. Instead of Freddie Winter running away with the Tour title, his battle with Nate Smith would have come down to the final event at the Travers Grand Prix. Winter’s win there—sealed in one of the highest scoring finals of all time—proved the clincher, capping one of the greatest comeback seasons of all time.

Men’s

  1. Frederick Winter (382 points) –
  2. Nate Smith (360 points) –
  3. Thomas Degasperi (311 points) –
  4. Charlie Ross (270 points) +1
  5. Dane Mechler (212 points) +2

Women’s

  • Jaimee Bull (359 points) –
  • Regina Jaquess (319 points) +1
  • Allie Nicholson (306 points) -1
  • Neilly Ross (246 points) –
  • Whitney McClintock Rini (215 points) +2

Tricks

No discipline highlighted the split between circuits more clearly than tricks. The Pro Tour featured four smaller trick events, but the three biggest tournaments—all Nautique-backed—opted out. That left the season feeling fractured.

When you include the Masters and Moomba, the world record holders rise to the top. Jake Abelson and Erika Lang each dominated when the stakes were highest, winning more titles than anyone else and proving themselves as the sport’s most consistent forces. Yet both largely skipped the European Pro Tour circuit, where prize purses barely covered travel costs. The quantity of trick events is growing—but until prize money grows too, the top fields will remain scattered.

Men’s

  1. Jake Abelson (164 points) +8
  2. Matias Gonzalez (125 points) –
  3. Joel Poland (101 points) +4
  4. Patricio Font (91 points) -3
  5. Louis Duplan-Fribourg (73 points) -2

Women’s

  1. Erika Lang (154 points) +3
  2. Anna Gay Hunter (120 points) -1
  3. Neilly Ross (110 points) -1
  4. Giannina Bonnemann Mechler (59 points) +3
  5. Alexia Abelson (53 points) –

Jump

Jump is where the expanded rankings have the potential to shake things up most. Only two star level jump events—the LA Night Jam and MasterCraft Pro—made the Pro Tour calendar this year, leaving the Nautique-backed majors on the outside. Yet no matter the venue, one result held true: Joel Poland and Hanna Straltsova were untouchable, both going undefeated across the season.

The women’s leaderboard remains unchanged, with Brittany Greenwood Wharton, the only other jumper to snag a pro win in 2025, holding second. But the men’s podium sees a reshuffle when the full calendar is considered, with Ryan Dodd, Luca Rauchenwald, and Igor Morozov all climbing the ranks.

Men’s

  1. Joel Poland (198 points) –
  2. Ryan Dodd (154 points) +1
  3. Luca Rauchenwald (133 points) +2
  4. Jack Critchley (128 points) -2
  5. Igor Morozov (95 points) new entry

Women’s

  • Hanna Straltsova (188 points) –
  • Brittany Greenwood Wharton (149 points) –
  • Sasha Danisheuskaya (141 points) –
  • Lauren Morgan (119 points) –
  • Regina Jaquess (105 points) –

Overall

Finally overall skiing, which is not officially recognized as an event by the Waterski Pro Tour. The last few seasons have heralded in a resurgence for the discipline, with competition across four professional events on the WWS Overall Tour. These rankings, although using a different methodology, line up almost exactly with the final standings of the WWS Tour.

Men’s

  1. Joel Poland (158 points)
  2. Louis Duplan-Fribourg (113 points)
  3. Dorien Llewellyn (106 points)
  4. Edoardo Marenzi (70 points) +1
  5. Jake Abelson (68 points) -1

Women’s

  1. Kennedy Hansen (95 points)
  2. Giannina Bonnemann Mechler (88 points)
  3. Alexia Abelson (61 points)
  4. Hanna Straltsova (34 points)
  5. Regina Jaquess (27 points)
UL Lafayette claimed its sixth consecutive Division 1 national championship

Ragin’ Cajuns Capture Sixth Straight National Title, Extend Historic Streak

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Ragin’ Cajuns Capture Sixth Straight National Title, Extend Historic Streak

UL Lafayette claimed its sixth consecutive Division 1 national championship

Image: @ullafayette

By Jack Burden

EL CENTRO, Calif. — The University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s Ragin’ Cajuns Water Ski Team has done it again.

With another commanding performance at the NCWSA National Championships at Imperial Lakes, UL Lafayette captured its sixth consecutive Division 1 national title — and 12th overall — extending an unbeaten streak that began in 2019. The run now stands as the second-longest winning streak in tournament history, trailing only the University of Louisiana at Monroe’s nine straight titles from 1980 to 1988.

Led by Kennedy Hansen, who swept all three women’s events to claim the overall title, the Cajuns showcased their trademark depth and precision. Dominic Kuhn, Alexander Gschiel, and Florian Parth all finished inside the top five in men’s overall, while Violeta Mociulsky, Kate Pinsonneault, and Megan Pelkey anchored the women’s side with multiple podium finishes.

Beyond the scores, this year’s Nationals captured everything that makes collegiate water skiing unique. More than 330 skiers from 24 schools competed in El Centro, filling the shorelines with team chants, music, and an infectious energy rarely seen at traditional water ski events. The weekend delivered world-class performances — from an all-10.25m (41-off) men’s slalom podium to a dramatic jump-off finale — but it was the sense of community that defined the tournament.

For the Cajuns, the victory extends one of the most dominant eras in collegiate sports, and for the sport itself, it was another reminder that the heart of water skiing still beats loudest when the youth show up.

Joel Poland Keeps Breaking World Records — and Making It Look Easy

The Joel Poland Effect: When World Records Become Routine

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The Joel Poland effect: When world records become routine

Joel Poland Keeps Breaking World Records — and Making It Look Easy

Image: @bretellisphotography

By Jack Burden

POLK CITY, Fla. — At this point, Joel Poland breaking world records is starting to feel routine. It shouldn’t.

At the WWS Fluid Cup this past weekend, Poland posted 1.5 @ 10.25m (41 off), 12,160 points, and a 70.1m (230 ft) jump to set a new pending men’s world overall record—again. The scores not only secured his 11th consecutive victory on the World Water Skiers Overall Tour, but also locked up his 2025 season championship.

This is now the fifth time Poland has set a pending world record in a professional event. That detail matters. For most of the 21st century, world records and professional competition existed in separate universes. Records fell in quiet backyard settings—perfect lakes, no pressure, no crowds—while the pro circuit was left to battle under public scrutiny. Before Poland’s 2023 record at the Overall Tour Finals, no skier had broken a world record in a professional tournament in 15 years.

“I came in today with no expectations,” Poland said after the round. “Just tried to survive, and that’s usually when things click. To put that together in a pro tournament—it means a lot.”

Since that breakthrough, Poland’s dominance has helped collapse the wall between record chasing and professional competition. The sport has followed his lead. Regina Jaquess’s 5 @ 10.25m at the 2023 Malibu Open marked the first slalom record in pro competition since 2008. Pato Font has equaled or exceeded the world trick record multiple times at pro events in the past two seasons. Erika Lang and Neilly Ross traded records this summer at the Botaski ProAm.

In the early 2000s, world records at pro events were common; between 2006 and 2022, they virtually vanished. That they’re now reappearing points to something bigger—the collective level is simply that high.

And it’s not just Poland pushing it. At this year’s World Championships, both Louis Duplan-Fribourg and Dorien Llewellyn posted preliminary-round scores higher than any world record prior to Poland’s current reign. Even Tim Wild’s bronze-medal total would have won nearly any Worlds this century. The field has caught up—and in doing so, it keeps pushing Poland even higher.

That’s the Joel Poland Effect: a circular feedback loop of greatness. His world-record form forces everyone else to raise their ceiling, and their response, in turn, drives him to break through again. What began as one skier’s exceptional run has become a rising tide for the entire sport.

At the Fluid Cup, Edoardo Marenzi, Rob Hazelwood, and Jake Abelson—all ranked inside the world’s top ten—missed the finals cut entirely. Poland himself trailed both Duplan-Fribourg and Llewellyn in prelims before storming back in the final.

“It’s a challenge to stay even across all three events,” Poland said. “You have moments when jump’s good, slalom’s good, tricks good—but getting them all in one round is hard.”

The women’s side mirrored that same depth. Just days before the event, the IWWF officially approved Hanna Straltsova’s world overall record, surpassing Natallia Berdnikava’s 13-year-old mark. And at Fluid, Kennedy Hansen, Giannina Bonnemann Mechler, and Regina Jaquess delivered one of the season’s tightest title battles, with Hansen emerging victorious.

Overall records are supposed to be the hardest to break. Every variable—conditions, timing, performance—has to align perfectly. Before Poland, no skier in history had broken an overall record more than four times in their entire career. Poland now stands on the verge of his eighth in just three and a half years.

He’s 27. His best may be yet to come.

Hanna Straltsova world record

Straltsova Ends 13-Year Reign with New World Record

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Hanna Straltsova ends 13-year reign with new women’s overall world record

Hanna Straltsova world record

Image: @skifluid

By Jack Burden

Thirteen years. A third of a point. A new name at the top.

At the Bill Wenner Memorial Record tournament in central Florida earlier this summer, Hanna Straltsova delivered one of the most complete performances in the history of water skiing—setting a new women’s world overall record with 5 buoys at 11.25 meters (38’ off), 8,890 points in tricks, and a 59.8-meter (196 ft) jump. The combination earned her 2,581.39 overall points, edging past Natallia Berdnikava’s legendary 2012 mark by just 0.27 points—the narrowest margin ever to decide an overall world record.

It’s a fitting milestone for Straltsova, who this season defended both her World Overall and Jump titles at the IWWF World Championships in Recetto, Italy, and clinched the Waterski Pro Tour Jump crown after another undefeated season.

Berdnikava’s 13-year record—3@11.25m, 9,740 points, and a 58.0m jump—had withstood an entire generation of challengers. Straltsova had been knocking on the door for several seasons before finally combining her best across all three events to surpass it.

Once known primarily as a jumper, Straltsova has quietly evolved into one of the sport’s most complete athletes—her recent gains in slalom in particular pushing her into new territory. With this record, she doesn’t just add another accolade; she breaks through the old ceiling, potentially opening the door to a new era in women’s overall skiing alongside rising contenders like Giannina Bonnemann Mechler and Kennedy Hansen.

Sergio Font leads the IWWF Trick Committee

IWWF Trick Committee Moves Toward Major Scoring Overhaul

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IWWF Trick Committee Moves Toward Major Scoring Overhaul

Sergio Font leads the IWWF Trick Committee

Image: @pato.font

By Jack Burden

The long-awaited reform of trick skiing’s scoring system is finally gaining momentum.

Meeting in Italy on September 1, the IWWF World Waterski Council received a proposal from the Trick Committee outlining sweeping changes to the sport’s point values—the first comprehensive overhaul in more than two decades.

Led by Sergio Font, the committee’s recommendations would increase the value of 10 high-difficulty flips, including most “super” flips and backflip variations of 360 degrees or more. Several would surpass the long-standing 1,000-point ceiling that has capped trick progression for years. Three non-flip tricks—wake-seven-back, ski-line-seven-front, and toe-wake-line-front—would also see modest increases. No tricks are proposed to decrease in value.

Font said the proposed changes reflect months of collaboration and are designed to make trick skiing “more entertaining” while better rewarding flips that are currently “undervalued.”

Under the plan, the anachronistic double backflip and backflip-stepover would be removed from the rulebook. The committee expects to deliver accompanying rule-change proposals this month, with implementation targeted for December 2026—giving athletes a full year to adapt before the changes take effect.

Council Chair Candido Moz endorsed the measured rollout, saying it will “allow skiers and coaches to consider the implications” ahead of the next World Championships cycle.

The proposals follow mounting criticism from elite athletes, including world record holder Joel Poland, who has argued that the current system “cripples trick skiing” by undervaluing the sport’s most difficult flips.

If adopted, the new points table would mark a historic reset—breaking the ceiling on trick difficulty and potentially reshaping elite runs for years to come.

Freddie Winter sealed his Waterski Pro Tour title with a victory at the Travers Grand Prix

Seven 41s: Travers Grand Prix Shatters the Ceiling

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Seven 41s: Travers Grand Prix shatters the ceiling

Freddie Winter sealed his Waterski Pro Tour title with a victory at the Travers Grand Prix

Image: @bretellisphotography

By Jack Burden

GROVELAND, Fla. — The pass that once felt like Everest is starting to look more like a stepping stone. At last weekend’s Travers Grand Prix, four different skiers ran 10.25 meters (41 off) a combined seven times — smashing the previous record of four, set two years ago at the Kaiafas Battle ProAm.

For decades, 41 off stood as the ultimate barrier in men’s slalom. Now, it’s falling with almost startling regularity. Over the last three elite events — the World Championships, the MasterCraft Pro, and now Travers — the men’s title has been decided at 9.75 (43 off). Nate Smith and Charlie Ross have set the tone through the back half of this season, but in Groveland, they were joined by Jonathan Travers and Freddie Winter, who pushed through to 43 and eventually took the win.

Winter’s victory capped a powerful redemption arc.

“This is the first season title I’ve ever won,” he said, after claiming the 2025 Waterski Pro Tour championship. “A year and a half ago I had a really terrible time, I hurt myself, and I worked really hard to come back. In some ways it’s very emotional — this one’s for everyone who gave me motivation to return.”

It wasn’t just the men raising the ceiling. The women’s final delivered one of the most thrilling showdowns in recent memory — a three-way tie at 10.25m (41 off) between Regina Jaquess, Jaimee Bull, and Whitney Rini, the first of its kind in waterski history. A cold-start runoff at 10.75 (39.5 off) followed, with Jaquess pulling ahead to take the win and close her 2025 season in fitting style.

It was Bull, however, who claimed the top honors.

“I’m super stoked,” said Bull, who clinched her fifth consecutive Waterski Pro Tour season title. “Five years in a row — I’m proud of the consistency, and hopefully there’s more to come.”

As the sun lowered over Sunset Lakes, the numbers told the story: seven 41s, four skiers into 43, and one message loud and clear — the sport’s limits are shifting, and fast.

Charlie Ross skis for Rollins College

Charlie Ross Makes History: Two 41-Offs, Two Tournaments, One Day

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Charlie Ross makes history: Two 41-offs, two tournaments, one day

Charlie Ross skis for Rollins College

Image: @charlieross_ski

By Jack Burden

WINTER GARDEN, Fla. — Rising Canadian star Charlie Ross packed a career’s worth of milestones into a single Saturday.

In the morning, the 20-year-old Rollins College sophomore took to the water at Sunset Lakes during the FSC-Rollins Fall Collegiate Tournament. Skiing for the Rollins Tars, Ross ran 10.25 meters (41 off) — the first complete pass at that line length in the history of collegiate water skiing. In doing so, he broke Will Asher’s NCWSA record of 3.5 @ 10.25m, a mark that had stood untouched since 2003.

Ross wasn’t even born when Asher, then skiing for Lafayette, set that record.

“Watching Will growing up, admiring him and wanting to be like him on and off the water — that was pretty cool,” Ross said on the TWBC Podcast. “He gave me a big hug when I saw him on Saturday. His record lasted 22 years. That’s older than a collegiate skier can be — it says everything about the career he’s had.”

Then, just hours later, Ross was back on the water — this time at the MasterCraft Pro on the Isles of Lake Hancock. Having qualified for the men’s slalom final, he went toe-to-toe with world champion Nate Smith in a near-repeat of their World Championships showdown just weeks earlier. Ross ran another 41 off (1 @ 43 off / 9.75m), tying Smith for the lead and completing his second full 41 of the day across two separate tournaments.

The two remained inseparable, tying again in a runoff before Smith narrowly edged out Ross in a second tiebreaker. “That one kind of stings,” Ross admitted. “Back-to-back weeks of 1 @ 43 and second place. But I know I’m right there.”

The MasterCraft Pro marked a triumphant return for elite skiing to U.S. waters, with world-class performances across the board. Regina Jaquess turned the tables on Jaimee Bull, claiming the women’s slalom title in a 41-off duel mirroring the World Championships final. In jump, both Joel Poland and Hanna Straltsova capped off undefeated seasons — though not without pressure. Aliaksandra Danisheuskaya and Brittany Greenwood Wharton both delivered season-best distances, while Ryan Dodd and Jack Critchley outjumped Poland in prelims before falling just short in the final.

Still, the weekend belonged to Ross — the rare skier to make history twice in a single day, at two tournaments, on two of the sport’s biggest stages.

Hanna Straltsova jumps at the 2024 WWS Canada Cup

The Home Stretch: What’s Left to Play for in the 2025 Water Ski Season

News

The home stretch: What’s left to play for in the 2025 water ski season

Hanna Straltsova jumps at the 2024 MasterCraft Pro

Image: @bearwitnesssportsphotos

By Jack Burden

The 2025 World Championships are in the books. After months of buildup, the sport’s marquee event delivered a record-breaking spectacle in Recetto, and with it came both exhaustion and relief. Athletes can finally exhale, knowing the season’s emotional and physical peak has passed.

But don’t mistake the back half of the calendar for a cool-down lap. Four major professional events remain, and with season championships still undecided on both the Waterski Pro Tour and the WWS Overall Tour, the final weeks of 2025 promise as much intrigue as any stretch of the year. Rivalries are sharpening, records are within reach, and season-long storylines are about to find their conclusion.

September 19–20: MasterCraft Pro

The Waterski Pro Tour roars back into action in Central Florida with its richest U.S. stop, the MasterCraft Pro. Now in its sixth year, the event shifts to the Isles of Lake Hancock, a venue known for packing in crowds during past editions of King of Darkness.

For jumpers, this is the season finale—a high-stakes showdown with extra weight given the tour’s pared-back jump schedule in 2025. Joel Poland and Hanna Straltsova remain undefeated this season, but both must deliver again to secure back-to-back season titles.

In slalom, Jaimee Bull appears untouchable, with a fifth consecutive season championship in her sights, though the battle behind her remains wide open. On the men’s side, Freddie Winter holds the edge, but with challengers lurking, one slip could turn the race on its head.

September 26–29: Travers Grand Prix

A fan and athlete favorite, the Travers Grand Prix brings the 2025 Waterski Pro Tour season to a close at Sunset Lakes. Equal parts festival and battleground, the event blends a lighthearted ProAm team contest—where skiing shares the stage with go-karts and skeet shooting—with some of the fiercest pro slalom competition of the year.

This is where the men’s slalom title will be decided. Winter remains the frontrunner, but veterans Adam Sedlmajer and Thomas Degasperi, along with young gun Rob Hazelwood, all have mathematical paths to stealing the crown. Expect a tense finish under the Florida sun.

October 11–12: WWS Fluid Cup

The spotlight shifts to the WWS Overall Tour, returning to Ski Fluid for its penultimate stop. The site’s reputation speaks for itself—world records have been born here in recent years, and if conditions line up, history could repeat.

In men’s overall, Joel Poland rides a ten-stop win streak and could clinch a staggering fourth straight season championship with another victory. But don’t count out reigning World Champion Dorien Llewellyn or France’s Louis Duplan-Fribourg, both hungry to halt Poland’s dominance.

The women’s race, meanwhile, is wide open. Kennedy Hansen, Hanna Straltsova, and Giannina Bonnemann Mechler have split victories and podiums so evenly that the title race will come down to centimeters—and likely won’t be decided until the final stop.

October 25–26: WWS Travers Cup

The curtain closes at Sunset Lakes with the WWS Travers Cup, where season titles and year-end bonuses will be on the line. Last year, Poland stunned with back-to-back world overall records in prelims and finals, a reminder that this event has a knack for producing fireworks.

As the last major tournament of the season, it’s more than just a finale—it’s the stage where reputations are sealed, rivalries settled, and momentum carried into the long offseason.

The Final Word

From Florida’s lakefront amphitheaters to the sport’s most record-prone waters, the next six weeks hold decisive moments for waterskiing’s biggest stars. The World Championships may be over, but the story of 2025 is far from finished.