Image: IWWF
The IWWF is excited to announce the approval of a new IWWF World Open Women’s Tricks Record.
Erika Lang (USA) scored 11,450 points during the second round of the Bell Acqua Lake 3 Record Trick, held at Bell Acqua 3, in Rio Linda, California, USA on June 7th, 2025. Towed by the World Record-Setting Ski Nautique.
The record has been officially approved by the IWWF Waterski Council.
Congratulations Erika!
Image: @erikalang36
By Jack Burden
SESEÑA, Spain — In the sweltering summer sun of central Spain, the 2025 BOTASKI ProAm may have just delivered the most dramatic women’s trick final in living memory — and perhaps the most significant result yet in the escalating rivalry between Erika Lang and Neilly Ross.
For most of the weekend, it looked like another Erika Lang masterclass. In the preliminary round, she tricked 11,450 points — her third pending world record in just two months. No woman had ever scored higher in any competition, professional or amateur. And yet, by the end of the weekend, Lang didn’t win.
Neilly Ross did.
The 24-year-old Canadian, who hadn’t beaten Lang or Anna Gay in a professional event in over three years, delivered a flawless final. Her score: 11,430 — tying the official world record she set last year and throwing down the gauntlet in what is becoming the defining rivalry of modern trick skiing.
That single moment flipped the script. For Lang to win, she would need another world record — not just to match her earlier performance, but to do it again, under pressure, with the title on the line.
She very nearly did.
Lang landed every big trick, running the same sequence that earned her 11,450 just a day earlier. But somewhere, in the dying seconds of a near-perfect hand pass, a minor sideslide — worth just 40 points — drew scrutiny. Judges ruled it incomplete. Her score dropped to 11,410. Twenty points short. Game over.
In any other era, 11,410 might have stood as a world record. At BOTASKI, it wasn’t enough to win.
It’s the closest a pro final has come to the world record since 2002, when Emma Sheers and Elena Milakova traded jumps — and history — at the Malibu Open. In a fitting parallel, the records and rivalry from that event helped define the next decade.
That the trick final even stole the spotlight is a story in itself. BOTASKI, now in its seventh edition, once again opted out of Waterski Pro Tour status — a decision that may have cost it international buzz. But with this final, it delivered a legacy moment anyway.
And perhaps, a changing of the guard.
Ross’s win doesn’t erase Lang’s dominance — not even close. Lang has won virtually everything over the past three seasons and turned scores once thought unreachable into something approaching routine. But the weight of this victory — Ross tying her own world record, beating Lang head-to-head, and ending a years-long drought — matters heading into the World Championships in August.
Frustratingly, this will be the last pro trick event before Worlds — a jarring contrast to the momentum the discipline has built in recent months. No more finals. No more record attempts. Just the long wait until Labor Day weekend, when Lang and Ross will meet again with a world title on the line and the rivalry entering its most anticipated chapter yet.
While the Lang-Ross showdown took top billing, the rest of the BOTASKI ProAm delivered its share of fireworks.
Jake Abelson continued his breakout season with another major win in men’s tricks, landing three scores over 12,400 — the kind of consistency once unimaginable. He held off Patricio Font, who also tricked over 12,000 in both prelims and finals, in what’s quietly becoming the premier head-to-head battle in men’s tricking.
In slalom, Jaimee Bull and Freddie Winter both looked untouchable, each picking up another win in what’s shaping into a dominant season. For Winter, it adds another notch to what may be one of the greatest injury comebacks in the sport’s history. For Bull, it reinforces her status as the most complete slalom skier on the women’s side — and continues her undefeated run through the European professional summer.
It’s rare for trick skiing to hold the spotlight this long. In a sport where slalom typically dominates coverage and prize money, the Lang-Ross rivalry has done more than bring attention back to tricks — it’s made it must-watch. Not just because of the scores, but because of the stakes. The pressure. The emotion.
Lang remains the most successful woman in trick skiing’s modern era. But for the first time in years, she has a rival who can match her, beat her, and push the sport forward in a new direction.
If this is what trick skiing can look like — tense, technical, thrilling — then maybe the question isn’t whether it deserves more attention.
Maybe the question is: why did it take this long?
Image: @shotbythomasgustafson
By RTB
3 minute play
In this quiz, your challenge is to name each skier who was the first to break a new 1,000-point milestone in trick skiing.
The list spans every milestone from 5,000 points to this month’s pending world records above 13,000, capturing over 50 years of progress in the sport. Each milestone reflects either a ratified IWWF world record or, for performances prior to 1975, a World Championships record. We’ve also included the year each milestone was achieved and the skier’s country.
* Pending word record.
Image: @skifluid
By Jack Burden
POLK CITY, FL — The longest-standing world record in waterskiing might have just fallen—by the narrowest margin in history.
At the Bill Wenner Memorial Record tournament in central Florida this weekend, reigning world overall and jump champion Hanna Straltsova quietly assembled a near-flawless performance: 5 buoys at 11.25 meters (38’ off), 8,890 points in tricks, and a 59.8-meter (196 ft) jump. Combined, her scores yielded an overall total of 2,581.4—just 0.3 points beyond the mark Natallia Berdnikava set back in 2012.
If ratified, it would not only end a 13-year reign, but also stand as the smallest margin by which a world overall record has ever been broken.
Straltsova, a former Belarusian who now skis for the United States and trains at Bennett’s Ski School in Louisiana, has long been one of the most promising athletes in the sport. Since Jacinta Carroll’s retirement, she’s dominated jump. But this weekend may have marked her most complete performance yet—one built not on one standout moment, but on balance, precision, and timing across all three events.
Berdnikava’s 2012 mark—3@11.25m, 9,740 points, and a 58.0m (190′) jump—became a benchmark that defined a generation. For over a decade, it resisted every challenger. Straltsova came closest—not with explosive trick scores or a record-breaking jump, but with just enough across the board.
Still, her record-setting effort was nearly lost in the noise.
At the same event, 17-year-old Jake Abelson tricked over 13,000 points twice, possibly signaling a new era for men’s trick skiing. But Straltsova’s accomplishment—subtler, steadier—may prove just as historic.
After years of dominance in one event, she’s now proven herself capable of rewriting the totals, too. And in a sport where overall skiing has sometimes taken a back seat to individual-event spectacle, that matters.
Thirteen years. A third of a point. A new name at the top.
Image: Johnny Hayward
By Jack Burden
POLK CITY, FL — There was a time when 13,000 points in men’s trick skiing felt like a myth. A ceiling. A number whispered with admiration but dismissed with realism. This weekend, Jake Abelson achieved the unthinkable.
On a hot June weekend at Ski Fluid in central Florida, Abelson tricked 13,020 points in the first round of the Bill Wenner Memorial Record tournament. It was a staggering score—one that broke the world record, pending ratification. The next round, he went out and did it again. This time: 13,270.
In a sport where progress inches forward, he had just taken a leap.
In its early decades, the world record climbed by a thousand points every few years—1975, ’77, ’79, ’81, and ’84 each saw new milestones breached as Cory Pickos took the sport over the threshold of 10,000. But as the level of difficulty increased and the stopwatch refused to budge from its 20-second window, progress slowed. From there, each new thousand took longer to fall—six years to reach 11,000 in 1990, another 11 to reach 12,000 in 2001. But 13,000? That mark seemed out of reach. Until now.
From 2005 to 2022, only two men’s world records were ratified—170 total points of progress in 17 years. Trick skiing was often called the most stagnant of the three events. Then came a renaissance, kicked off in late 2022 by Mexico’s Patricio Font, who broke Aliaksei Zharnasek’s 11-year-old record. In the span of 18 months, the event transformed from glacial to white-hot.
That sudden acceleration in progression? It didn’t come from nowhere.
No one embodies that shift more than Jake Abelson.
Abelson is 17. His dad was an elite-level trick skier. His mom? A Junior Masters champion and a regular on the pro slalom and trick scene in the 2000s. His cousin is Patricio Font. He’s a second-generation athlete with deep family ties to the sport—raised with access to the best coaches, the best equipment, and the best ski sites in the world. His story isn’t one of accidental talent. It’s one of purposeful design.
What separates Abelson isn’t just his résumé. It’s the way he blends nearly every key ingredient that defines the modern trick skiing elite.
He has the raw power and strength of Zharnasek, enabling him to throw audacious tricks like wake-seven-front-to-front and ski-line-seven-back-to-back. He has the speed and precision of Font, unlocking the ability to squeeze in one more trick before the 20-second buzzer. And perhaps most importantly, he skis with the quiet poise of a gymnast who’s spent years training for perfection under pressure.
That’s not just metaphor. Jake still competes as a level 10 gymnast. Like Erika Lang, who transferred her tumbling background into becoming one of the greatest women’s trickers of all time, Abelson has brought aerial awareness and body control into a sport that now demands both in spades.
“In trick skiing, the goal is to perform as many high scoring tricks as possible in 20 seconds,” he said. “At a high level, more speed is required to add another trick or upgrade a preexisting one.”
Abelson spent last winter hammering one trick over and over—wake-seven-front-to-front, a brutally difficult 800-point move with a 720-degree spin and two handle passes. By April’s Swiss Pro Tricks, he could land it cleanly and on time, without derailing the rest of the run. In May 2024, he nearly broke 13,000 at a Masters Qualifier, missing the mark by inches—falling on the last two tricks. It was the proof of concept.
Fast forward to June 2025, and he executed.
But there’s a deeper layer to why this is happening now—and why it might not last forever.
Tricking is, at its core, a race against time. And to move faster, it helps to be lighter.
“You’ve got to look at body types,” said Joel Poland on a recent episode of the Grab Matters podcast. “When you’re smaller, you weigh 130 to 150 pounds, faster is easier. You can go slower with the boat, you can move a little faster. As you become a bigger person, you can keep that speed and learn to go fast—but it definitely gets harder.”
That dynamic makes Abelson’s moment feel especially fleeting and perfectly timed. He has the technical base, the gymnastic strength, the trick lineage—but also, the age and size to make speed work for him, not against him. In a few years, his approach might need to change. For now, it’s the perfect storm.
Abelson is quick to credit others. Matias Gonzalez and Martin Labra, the young Chileans pushing boundaries in toe tricks. Joel Poland, whose creativity and flair have inspired Abelson to explore more ambitious sequences. And Font, who reimagined the hand pass with blistering speed and composure.
As Gonzalez put it: “To consistently trick over 12k, the most important thing [is] to focus on speed,” said the 17-year-old Chilean, who already has multiple professional titles under his belt. “Pato showed that 11 tricks on hands were possible. That set the new standard.”
Abelson echoed the point almost word-for-word, crediting “the increase in speed which was demonstrated by Font” as the catalyst for this new era.
The skiing world was forced to take notice. From 2019 to 2023, Font won two World Championships and eight pro titles—one of the highest winning percentages in the history of modern trick skiing. “His consistency,” Abelson said, “[forced] the other competitors to put more time on the water just to be able to compete.”
Abelson’s rise feels sudden, but the data tells a deeper story. In April 2024, his personal best was 11,980. Then, in the span of one month: six scores over 12,000, including two world records at 12,720 and 12,970. His form in 2025 has been unmatched—winning the Moomba Masters, then the US Masters, and now potentially breaking the world record twice.
His record-setting run wasn’t a spike. It was a detonation—evidence not of a fluke, but of an athlete who’s shifted the benchmark.
And he’s not alone. Gonzalez and Labra are close behind. Louis Duplan-Fribourg of France, the reigning world overall champion, has a personal best over 12,500. Font still looms—consistent, decorated, and hungry.
“We started pushing ourselves to a better level,” said Labra. “Being with Mati [Gonzalez] since we were kids… and after that Jake, it helped me a lot to improve… to try to beat [them], we helped each other to be better.”
But Abelson’s ceiling might be higher still.
He’s not just a phenomenal tricker. He’s emerging as one of the most complete skiers in the world—just named to the 2025 U.S. World Championship team in overall. He skis all three events. He tricks like a specialist. And he’s the first American man to hold the world trick record since Cory Pickos in 2001.
In that sense, Abelson’s moment is bigger than a number. It’s a glimpse of what’s possible: not just in trick, but in the sport as a whole.
The only question now: is this the new ceiling—or just the start of something even bigger?
Lang vs. Ross: The Ultimate Showdown
By Jack Burden
This past weekend, one of the sport’s most electric rivalries continued — not in a head-to-head showdown, but on opposite sides of the world.
In California, Erika Lang quietly added another pending world record to her résumé, scoring 11,450 points — equaling the mark she set last month, which is still awaiting IWWF approval. She’s already notched three straight wins in 2025, an unbroken streak that includes Moomba, Swiss Pro Tricks, and the Masters. Just months after losing the record to Canada’s Neilly Ross, Lang has left no doubt: she wants it back — and she wants it badly.
Meanwhile, Ross was in Monaco — a place better known for superyachts and Formula 1 than women’s trick skiing. She’d traveled there expecting to compete in her signature event, only to discover the women’s trick division had been quietly dropped. Rather than pack up and head home, Ross entered the men’s field. No shortcuts, no caveats — just her versus the world’s best male trick skiers.
It didn’t go to plan. She pushed for a massive score, overreached, and landed outside the prize money. A third-place finish in women’s slalom offered some consolation — and helped offset the cost of the trip.
But if the scoreboard favored Lang, the spotlight — such as it exists in professional waterskiing — leaned toward Ross. While Lang was setting records in the back corner of a lake, witnessed only by officials and a handful of skiers, Ross was putting herself on stage. The Monaco Waterski Cup drew fans, sponsors, and some of the sport’s best production value. The risks were high — but so was the visibility.
Both athletes are expected to headline this weekend’s Royal Nautique Pro in Rabat, Morocco. The event promises big prize money, an exotic setting, and a rare chance for direct competition in women’s tricks. The site — a downtown river with excellent spectator access — could produce anything from chaos to classic, depending on conditions.
But the contrast between scoring and competing runs deeper than a single weekend. Lang’s performance in California could trigger a substantial bonus from Nautique — potentially exceeding the entire trick purse at Monaco. She lives and works on the West Coast, holds a full-time job, and turns 30 later this year. Jetting across the globe for every introductory-level event doesn’t make sense — financially or professionally.
Ross, 24, is in a different phase. Fresh out of college, increasingly competitive in slalom, and not yet tethered by the same responsibilities. Her gamble in Monaco wasn’t just bold — it was brand-building. A shot across the bow in a sport still figuring out what the next generation looks like.
And that’s the rub. World records may make great marketing material. But putting yourself out there — in the crucible of competition, under pressure, in public — might actually grow the sport.
Records are impressive. But the real fireworks happen when these two are on the same starting dock, on the same day, with everything on the line.
Image: @shotbythomasgustafson
By Jack Burden
PANAMA CITY, Fla. — Erika Lang, the most dominant women’s tricker of the past decade, has once again scaled the sport’s highest peak. On Sunday, at the Florida Inboards Open at Ski Lake Jillian, Lang laid down an 11,450-point run—her best ever, and a new pending world record.
If ratified, the score would reclaim the world record from Canadian rival Neilly Ross, who currently holds the official mark at 11,430, approved last fall after a dizzying back-and-forth between the two that turned the record chase into a season-long thriller.
Lang’s latest score is the highest ever tricked by a woman, equaling her previous pending mark of 11,450 from Timber Cove last November, which was ultimately not ratified. While the point total matches her earlier attempt, the sequence was slightly different—subtle evidence of offseason refinement and relentless pursuit.
Lang’s world record run
The Lang-Ross duel has breathed life into women’s tricks, a discipline that often struggles for visibility in a sport calendar dominated by slalom and jump. In an era where trickers can go entire seasons without meaningful prize money or true head-to-head battles, Lang and Ross have made record-breaking the main event.
Last fall, Ross snapped Lang’s eight-year reign as world record holder with an 11,380 at Okeeheelee. Lang responded seven days later in Texas with 11,450, a performance many believed had sealed her return to the top. But Ross struck back—double-tapping 11,430 in both rounds at Lake Ledbetter. That score was ratified. Lang’s was not.
Their duel has played out not on primetime broadcasts or in front of roaring crowds, but on quiet lakes, with just a camera, a few judges, and a tight circle of competitors. And yet, the skiing—like pirouettes on glass—has been nothing short of electric.
Ross’s rise has been more than just a challenge—it’s a shift. Young, fearless, and technically daring, she splits her six flips down the middle to perform a series of wake spins and ski line tricks with speed that’s redefining what’s possible. Her toe pass? Over 5,000 points—a rare feat for female skiers. She’s not following Lang’s footsteps—she’s forging her own path.
Lang, though, is far from fading. Since breaking her first world record in 2013, she’s extended the mark from just over 10,000 to a pending 11,450. Since the start of 2023, she’s won the world title, the Pan American Games, and 9 of 11 pro events, including this year’s Moomba Masters and Swiss Pro Tricks. She remains the only woman to score over 11,000 in professional competition.
Now, with her latest score under review by the International Waterski & Wakeboard Federation, Lang may finally reclaim the official record she first set more than a decade ago. Whether or not it’s ratified, she’s made a statement—and the timing couldn’t be sharper.
This coming weekend, Lang, Ross, and Anna Gay Hunter will go head-to-head at the U.S. Masters on Robin Lake, the richest trick skiing event of the year. It will mark the latest chapter in a rivalry that has defined women’s trick skiing for over a decade.
Between them, the trio has claimed 25 of the past 27 professional trick titles—a decade of dominance passed like a baton from one to the next and back again. There have been shifts in technique, peaks and valleys in form, and trick runs that redrew the boundaries of what’s possible. But the cast hasn’t changed.
And now, as Lang reasserts her hold on the highest score the sport has ever seen, the balance tips again. The story isn’t over. It’s just entering its next round.
Image: @rollinswaterski
By Jack Burden
CLERMONT, FLA. — One of water skiing’s most exclusive clubs has a new—and youngest ever—member.
On Sunday at the Swiss Spring Classic, 19-year-old Canadian phenom Charlie Ross ran 1 buoy at 9.75 metres (43-off), becoming just the 16th skier in history to complete the fabled 10.25-metre (41-off) pass in tournament conditions. The score not only joins him to slalom royalty—it also sets a pending World Under-21 and Canadian Open record.
At 19 years and eight months, Ross surpasses Nate Smith’s mark as the youngest skier ever to achieve the feat. Smith, who first ran 41-off at age 20 years and six months, has long been the benchmark for modern slalom skiing. Now, that mantle may have been taken.
For close watchers of the pro scene, Ross’s breakthrough is less a surprise and more an inevitability fulfilled. His rise has been relentless: six Under-17 world record slalom performances (including a staggering 4 @ 10.25m as a junior in 2022), three successive Under-21 world records, and, most recently, a debut professional victory at the Moomba Masters this March—where he outdueled veterans and prodigies alike to win men’s slalom at one of the sport’s most storied events.
That Moomba final felt like a preview of the chaos defining modern men’s slalom. In an era where parity reigns—ten different pro event winners in 2024 alone—the Melbourne showdown was vintage unpredictability. Sixteen-year-old Damien Eade flashed early brilliance; the ever-versatile Joel Poland showcased his strength; Freddie Winter, just nine months removed from a broken femur, clawed back into relevance; and Lucas Cornale ignited the home crowd before Thomas Degasperi, ever the tactician, set the mark to beat. Skiing last, Ross answered with the highest score of the event to clinch the title—becoming the youngest Moomba Masters champion since Carl Roberge in the early 1980s.
A statement win for a skier whose pedigree feels almost like destiny. His father, Drew Ross, was a mainstay on the pro circuit through the ’90s and 2000s, anchoring Team Canada’s success. His sister, Neilly Ross, holds the current women’s world record in tricks and is an elite slalom contender. Raised at a ski school in central Florida, Ross honed his craft under the dual pillars of year-round conditions and top-tier coaching.
But raw talent only explains so much. Ross has become a student of the sport in the purest sense—obsessing over historical footage, deconstructing the gates of legends like Andy Mapple, Will Asher, and Freddie Winter, and dissecting body position frame by frame to edge his form closer to perfection.
“You can’t substitute for volume, volume on the water,” Ross told Marcus Brown on The FPM Podcast earlier this year. He also stressed the value of “bouncing different ideas off different people,” citing the advantage of training at multiple sites and the dense concentration of world-class coaches in central Florida.
Ross’s rise has also been fueled by a deliberate transformation off the water. Long one of the lightest skiers on tour (a wiry 6’2” and 138 pounds last season), he dedicated his winter to gaining strength—adding 20 pounds of muscle to balance agility with durability. The payoff was evident in Melbourne and again this weekend in Clermont, where his composed, powerful style carried him into waterski immortality.
Remarkably, Ross balances his professional ascent with a heavy academic load. A freshman at Rollins College, he juggles coursework with a travel schedule stretching across hemispheres. As the packed 2025 season unfolds—with eyes on the Under-21 World Championships on home soil later this year and a full slate of pro majors—his trajectory shows no signs of slowing.
Beyond his own ambitions, Ross sees slalom entering a pivotal era—one that echoes the rapid evolution recently seen in men’s tricks.
“It was only a few years ago we were asking if tricking 13,000 points was possible, what’s the points per second?” Ross said. “Now it’s guys like Mati, Tincho, Jake, Pato, and Joel—all right on the door.”
He predicts a similar surge in slalom, as a wave of young talents—including Lucas Cornale and the Eade brothers—begin to challenge the sport’s established elite.
“In a couple years, every tournament might take a near world record to win,” Ross said. “It’s going to be crazy.”
As the sport braces for a wave of record-breaking performances, Ross intends to lead the charge. “I want to chase running 43,” he said, referencing the 9.75m line length where the current world record stands at 2.5 buoys. “I don’t know if it’s even close to possible,” he added, “but when I’m done with my career, I want to be able to say I did everything I can to run 43.”
On Saturday, he took the first giant step toward that future. The 41-Off Club has a new name on its roster—and he’s just getting started.
Image: Calgary World Waterski Championships (courtesy IWWF)
By RTB
3 minute play
In this quiz, you need to name all the male skiers who have run 10.25 meters (41′ off).
The list has 16 skiers, all of whom belong to the exclusive club of skiers who have run 10.25 meters at least once in a world ranking tournament. The skier at the top of this list has run the pass more often than every other skier combined. We have mentioned the number of 10.25 meters run, as well as the country and top score.
Data updated as of May 11, 2025
* Performed in a runoff, not an official score.
Image: In His Wakes
By RTB
5 minute play
In this quiz, you need to name the women to have held an open world record for the longest time.
The list has 19 record streaks, we have set the cut off at three consecutive years of holding the world record, with most of the skiers breaking the record multiple times during their streaks. The skier at the top of the list held the women’s trick record for an incredible 17 years and 11 months. We have mentioned the event, consecutive years the record was held, as well as the highest score during the streak.
Data updated as of July 1, 2023
