90 skiers compete at the April Stoney Park Malibu series!
The 2007/2008 NSW Malibu series was wrapped up in a large way at Stoney Park for the final round on April 12 and 13.
Traditionally, the tournament water skiing “season” ends up at the conclusion of the nationals – which are always held at Easter. But in 2008, with Easter being so early, the decision was made by the team at Stoney Park in conjunction with the NSW tournament board to try their luck and host the event 3 weeks after nationals.
This decision was certainly was a wise one – with the event not only being the largest Malibu series tournament ever held , but is also a record for NSW, with nobody (well certainly nobody at the weekend!) recalling a tournament (outside of a nationals) held in NSW ever that has been larger! All in all, their was a total of 88 slalom skiers, 26 trickers and 26 jumpers!
One contributing factor that helped the weekend run so smoothly was that the 190 ski tows were pulled by a total of 3 Malibu responses! The Canberra ski club helped out by bringing their boat along, which greatly assisted in getting through the large number of skiers.
From a spectator's point of view, with 2 boats operating one lake and a third boat on the other lake, it made for plenty of on water action and certainly no time to wonder what would be happening next on the water.
The weekend saw the return of so many familiar Malibu Series skiers and also a huge influx of new skiers, to both the mini course and regular slalom divisions.
During the week leading up to the tournament, the park had received approximately 4 inches of rain – which made for a nervous bunch of skiers, wondering if the skies would clear up or if the autumn weather would close in for the event! Thankfully, the skies cleared and the weekend's conditions were nothing less than perfect! The sun came out, the wind vanished and the 2 man made lakes had absolutely perfect conditions for the huge event!
The mini course division was taken out by new comer to Stoney Park , Hannah Mahon, who had travelled all the way from Temora for the weekend. With a perfect score in the second round, I think Hannah will certainly be stepping up a division for next season!
The 28-46k division was won by Newcastle 's Jesse Everett. This is a fantastic result, considering that back at the beginning of the summer at the junior camp held at Stoney Park , Jesse was struggling to run the mini course!
In the 46-52k division, it was up and coming Sydney skier, Jason Miller who went away with the trophy! Jason skied a new personal best of 3 buoys on the 13 metre line to take out the event.
It was new dad and “out of practice” skier, Charlie Barton, who fist pumped the whole way through his last pass, to clean up the 52k-16m division! Charlie hadn't skied for a couple of weeks prior to the event and now is a firm believer of the “why bother practising?”theory as he skied a new personal best in the final! Obviously he isn't the one getting up at 3am to change nappies and do the feeds!
Sibling rivalry and family domination were prevalent in the 16m-13m division. Brother and sister combination, Tim and Alyce Bradstreet, showed everyone why they are hopefully off to Peru in January competing at the junior worlds – with both of them taking out the first and second positions respectively.
The final slalom division, 13m+, was won by Stoney Park 's head coach, Jason Stone. This has capped off a great season for Jason that also saw him take the first prize in “Cooksie's” Sydney Pro Am.
In the tricks events, more evidence of siblings excelling, came in the form of the O'toole sisters. Both Sarah and Carly O'toole took out their divisions, the 0-500 and 500-1000 point respectively.
In jump, some fantastic scores and huge personal bests were achieved by regular many, including regular Stoney Park skiers; Drew Ireland, Danny McDonald and Damon Wooderson.
So, with the 2007/2008 Malibu series season all wrapped up, it is probably a perfect opportunity to reflect on a fantastic year and how far the series has come! All 7 rounds were absolutely overflowing with newcomers and had to cut off entries early due to the huge response in their ever growing popularity! To think, in the early days, the organisers were thrilled to see 30 competitors – wow what a difference 7 years makes! One can only be left to wonder……..how big and how fantastic will the Malibu series be in summer 08/09? |
