This weekend (18th and 19th of September) was the last competion of the 2015 season, the competion was held in goldenfalls waterski club in Ballymore Eustace. It was a personal best competion so you were judged on your original pb from your last competion and points are added for every buoy you go around. The competion started on the 18th and round one was on Saturday. The weather was good but the lake was too high so there was bad wash in the middle of the course. On Sunday the weather conditions were bad there was heavy rain and the judges had to take a few breaks to wait for it to stop raining, the water went down a bit so the wash wasn't as bad as the day before. Competion started at 10 o'clock on Saturday morning with Ben Dickson first out on the water in the novice division and then first out on the water in the open division was Daryl Higgins. the 1st round finished quite quickly and the judges Carl Cautley and Dianne Kirby didn't take a break before going into round 2. After round 2 there was a lunch break for an hour. When the fisrt skiers went out the water was nice and it was a bit cloudy but then the weather got worse and started to rain when I went out to ski it was only drizzling but when the skier after me went out she got a re run as the rain turned really bad and effected her visibility. It took the judges about 25 minutes to add up the total scores In the novice category in 3rd place was Etrusca Eluteri ,in 2nd place was Ben Dickson and in 1st place was Fran Flynn .In the open division in 3rd place was Megan Fitzpatrick, in 2nd place was Geovanni Bentou and in 1st place was Abby Durham.

photographs were taken by Des Burke Kennedy

Ray Stokes

Ray stokes was definitely the most inspirational person I have ever met. He was the best coach I ever had he thought me how to ski from starting on the bar on two skis tied together because I was so small I couldn't control the skis to teaching me my deep water starts and running into the slalom course and he always had smile on his face when teaching. Ray came over to goldenfalls every year since 1990 from Australia to do a course for a week in the summer and it was a week everybody in the club looked forward to. On the 19th of January 2011 ray was diagnosed with phantom melanoma cancer which was unfortunately incurable but when ray was diagnosed he was given only 90 days to live but he exceeded his life expectancy. Ray wasn't only a coach to some of the worlds top skiers Emma Sheers, June Fladborg and coached 5 national teams he also designed the brand of jump skis Stoke skis are the top of the range jump skis which made jumping longer distances very safe. Ray was very popular through out the world and when he was diagnosed the support he received was huge some examples of the support ray received was the annual Goldenfalls water ski grand prix was renamed to the ray stokes grand prix and all the skiers donated the prize money they won to ray. Another example was on rays caring bridge site over 30,000 people left messages for him and donated to the fund Ray set up to help his sons. Ray fought a long and tough battle which he unfortunately lost, there was a memorial for ray in Ireland when he passed away and the Irish federation president at the time Des Burke-Kennedy went over to Healesville, Victora in Australia to attend the funeral.

Waterskiing in Ireland is at a minority to other sports but is still growing in popularity throughout the country. One of the positives in having a small number who compete is that everybody knows everyone. For people who don't know what waterskiing consists of, there are 3 disciplines slalom, jump and trick all of the separate disciplines have there own techniques but the key to each is having good balance.
Slalom is skiing down a course of 6 buoys on one ski. the measurements from the boats gates in the centre of the course to the buoys is 11.5 meters .Each time you run a pass (complete the 6 buoys) the speed will go up by 3 km/h once the skier reaches there max speed for their division 55km/h for women and 58 km/h for men the rope gets shortened which makes it even more difficult for the skiers to reach the buoys. Slalom is definitely my favourite of the 3 disciplines as I love the feeling of joy and excitement as you go through those closing gates having ran a new personal best or even just having a really nice pass.
Jump is going over a ramp on two skis the overall aim is to travel the longest distance but for your score to count you must land the jump if you fall your score for that jump will not count. In competition you jump 3 times and your best score is counted.When the skier is going out to jump they choose there speed the maximum is 58km/h.The height of the ramp varies for the different divisions.Once you get to the higher speeds and compete at a higher level you start to cut across the wakes behind the boat to create speed to jump further. I really enjoy jumping you get a great sense of satisfaction when you land the jump.
trick skiing is definitely the most challenging of the 3 disciplines, imagine trying to balance on a bar of soap that is what trick skiing feels like.the trick ski itself is a small,smooth oval shaped ski with no fin.This makes it very hard to get control of the ski. In competion the skiers are given 20 seconds to complete their routine of tricks, the first pass is for hand tricks which is all the flips and the second pass is for toe tricks which is doing tricks with their foot in the rope!I havn't got the hang of trick skiing yet, I can get up on the ski but I'm a bit far off yet from doing all the flips and toe tricks so i'll have to keep practising.

Introduction

My name is Abby Durham and this is my blog about waterskiing in Ireland