FWinter

The oft repeated line is that judges do it for free and do it for the love of the sport so they should be immune to criticism. We as athlete certainly appreciate that they give their time. However, the fact stands that three of the last four years the slalom result has been decided because of a changed judges call twenty minutes or more after the event has finished. This is so bad for everyone involved. Forget about the pain as a skier of having the title taken away from you because the judges changed their mind (I have experience in this) well after you skied, think about the audience. No other sport would allow the audience to be so confused for so long after the event is supposedly finished. This is terrible and if we are to have any chance of bringing the fans back to the sport better decisions and rules must be made.

@chef23 Boris Lavals girlfriend. Skiing great right now. Rides an MC... :wink:

@Horton May I refer you to Hamiltons debut 2007 season when he and Alonso, the reigning world champ, were in the same team. Hamilton came 2nd to Alonso's 3rd in the drivers championships with a superior finish record. Alonso couldn't take the heat so he fled McLaren the following season in which Hamilton won. @ozski Murray is the man either way!

@303Skier Mo snapped ski in the crash, just a pretty useful velcro Powershell release. Still riding the same ski which I'm happy about as it's the best ski I've used yet (as predictable as that is for me to say but honestly, it's bloody good). It's my first 2016 model and I love it. @supersonicus Yes, a British thing. Though Hamilton isn't in my top, top British sports stars like Andy Murray and Phil 'The Power' Taylor, he's a goodun and the guy I support on the track. @Horton Thanks for you unwavering support despite your love of no-hope F1 drivers. Much appreciated.

I can't believe I'm reading positive reviews of a webcast. I didn't watch a whole lot (skiing etc got in the way) but I know that Vince Stadlbaur and Tony have been working on it for a few days to get it right after Tony flew in two days early for that reason. Credit where credits due and from what you're all saying it paid off big time. This is the sort of thing the sport needs. FYI Tony showed me some of the early positive comments and was very happy. Great event all round, the Stadlbaurs and all involved did a fantastic job. As for my crash, what a huge bloody idiot.

It's going to be a fun tournament. Let's hope gates don't play a part. So bloody painful for the viewer.

@MAD11 yeah 'Freddy' is still the only Winter invited to Masters, still waiting for mine. Also last week 'Fred Winter' was 2nd on the Elite list and 'Frederick Winter' was 16th with the moomba points. It's confusing having everyone use my name incorrectly.

@horton and @texas6 totally agree. No way to grow pro water skiing (which would trickle down to water skiing as a whole) and get those bigger sponsors in without first sorting out the communication side of things. Webcasting is a good tool but up to date results and an information hub are just as important, if not more so. Communication is key. So we're on the same page. Wow, what a lovely productive forum. It's not all bitching and negativity online.

Alright @Horton, I'll bite. You've caught me at the end of a very long journey back to England with no sleep and I wish I could throw a big, silly laughing panda gif at you. First off, I really take issue with the use of 'donation'. It's just the wrong word to use because it suggests we as pro skiers are not working hard for any money we can get in the pro game. After all the training hours and flight and accommodation costs that's just obviously not the case. Also, the event was paid for (ie all the prize money) by Latrobe Valley City council, a small Australian town that's big in the energy production industry. I can only speculate as to their motivation for putting it on but there is no doubt to me that is was not to increase the visibility of their city to water skiers in America. Secondly having a negative attitude towards brand new, first time pro events gets us absolutely nowhere. This is the first year of the event. The pro skiers as a group are really bloody happy that there's another event happening so we can justify the expensive flight over a little bit more. Yes, there wasn't great accessibility of scores after the event. That's a shame and can be improved upon for next year and thereafter (it's fully funded til 2020). There was a webcast with the finest commentator in the world imo. This is better than the World Championships, the most established event in water skiing which had no live video. I had a lot for friends and family watch Latrobe in the middle of the night in the UK, they loved it. We need to be positive with new pro events, putting on tournaments is hard as hell. I'm bloody grateful they did it, with everything else apart from score communication they did a fantastic job. Having said all that, on the whole I agree with you, we need to do something to centralise information of pro events and make it easily accessible. I've been a ski fan far longer than being a pro skier and I know how annoying it is not to have the info immediately as we are used to in other sports. Who knows, maybe somethings in the post on that front. I know Tom Grey has started proskiers.com which looks like a huge step in the right direction. Now please all come at me and tell me how wrong I am

In my eyes, Jeff Surdej can do no wrong but "anyone who has attended international 3 event tournaments knows how exciting the team aspect is"? I have slept through many an international 3 event tournament and I was more comatose than interested. Maybe it's because brits can't trick or because I only understand lefts and rights. Collegiate skiing is wonderful though. Hope this works. Jeff knows the score.

Weighting on prize money does seem kind of ridiculous. One big money event out in the middle of nowhere with shocking skiing conditions and a winning score at 35off would totally skew the whole list. An equal weighting would make much more sense to me, as in Formula 1. If some tournaments really do need to be more heavily weighted in terms of points it should be based on how distinguished the tournament is (Masters, Worlds) or how long it has been running.

From my perspective these are the best around. All I use. They feel weird for a set or two but I honestly put them on in late October and skied better from then on. Used these in the Worlds in the super slippery water and decided to hold on for a full 2 bouys in the final. Was skidding on my back for 150 feet with a full buoy given which put me in the run off for Bronze. These things don't let go if you don't want to. Tip: If you're going from 41's to these go one size up. These give way less and are a little smaller to start. I'm S in 41's and M in these.

@klindy @Edbrazil The controversy surrounding jump was that the course was remapped halfway through the mens final as someone noticed the zero off was beeping in the wrong place compared to the buoys. All the jumpers before the remapping were incensed. The judges' decision was to deny all the 5 or so skiers before the remapping a rerun and to give a single one jump reride to the most recent skier.

Just on the way out to collect my lost skis but the short version of the story is that Parrish was right, the buoys were ridiculously big, especially buoy 2 on the first pass (5 on the way back). No other serious event I've been to this year has had such big turn buoys or gates. It makes it harder to ski as you need to be wider to get around them at short line and more dangerous if you hit them. Problem is once the event has started it's hard to change the buoys. I complained at every pass. They (allegedly) lowered buoy 2 after I skied. This was one of three hugely shameful admin/ judging issues for the sport of the week and that doesn't include the lack of webcast.

@MattP I was thinking of suggesting this. It makes the most sense. 'The line is 34 feet long meaning the handle reaches only 4 feet inside the bouy line'. Much better. Now we just need rope companies/ announcers/ water ski population in general to follow.

At this point I can do all three but in my head it's always metres. This is because this is how it's been since birth for me and also because there is no doubt at all to me that measuring the length of something makes sense while measuring the length less than some other not mentioned number makes none. I've talked about why this is bad for growing the sport in the US Open thread so no point reiterating. Funny story. I turned up in the States for my first pro event at the 2013 Diablo Shores Pro-Am having literally zero idea about the feet off measurements. I had a practise set before the event and went to stand on the dock. Of course, I'd only ever skied in Europe at this point so no one had any idea I could run a few buoys. The driver came up and asked me what I wanted to start at. I panicked when he didn't know what 13m was so I said 'errr, the green one?'. The guy looked at me as if I was being smart with him and obviously not believing that anyone who didn't know what 32off was could have a chance of running it. We get to the other end of the lake, he turns around and says to me 'OK, I'm gonna start driving properly now, didn't think you'd get this far' and we both laughed.

First off before I say anything else I would like to say I enjoyed the US Open a lot. It was my first time skiing in this type of event on a 4 bouy course on a big public lake and it was a lot of fun. I was pretty happy with how I skied and I took home more money than I left with. Grateful for all the organisers did for us etc. I can see everyones point about the 4 bouy course not being perfect. For me as a skier it dumbed down the sport a little (3 big turns instead of 5) and I can get how the viewer might not see it with the same level of interest as the loss of those turns and their potential for a fall lessens the drama. However, the lake wasn't big enough for a six buoy and I definitely think the tradeoff of losing a couple of buoys was worth it to get the ski out in front of people that don't usually see the sport. I am definitely with @Wish on this one in terms of describing the length of the line in feet off etc. Why on earth, if we are trying to sell this sport to those who have no idea what is going on, would we talk about the rope being so many feet less than a line length that no one slaloms on anymore? It's insanity. I understand that this is how it's been done over here forever (and I appreciate I am a happy guest in America) but when someone asks me how long the lake is I don't tell them it's 400 feet less than 2000. Because that would be confusing and stupid. To make slaloming understandable and therefore interesting to the uninitiated we need to tell them that at some point the line is shorter than the distance to the buoy line, and by how much. I'm not saying talk in metres, as that would again make it opaque to the majority, but tell them in feet. Its just under 38 feet to the buoy line and there are skiers that turn buoys when the line is 32 feet long! This is awesome and needs to be communicated. I remember when @MarcusBrown was commentating at the amazing Calgary Shootout last year he made this point. If we are going to communicate our sport to newbies it cannot be in reference to an irrelevant 75 foot line. One more thing. When I was driving to the event at 10am there was a ton of traffic on the motorway right next to the lake. I could see the skiing. Russell Gay was tricking. It looked awesome. However, if I wasn't already involved in the sport, I would have had no idea if it was a tournament and if it was, which one. I'd have probably assumed it was bloody wakeboarding. Basically if I'd wanted to google it from my phone I would have had zero idea what to search and if I'd wanted to go watch I'd have had no idea where. After all the good work that all the organisers did it was a shame not to have some banners next to the road/ floaty things on the lake to show what was going on. Thousands of cars passed by a ski tournament in the 'home of water skiing' and had no idea what was going on. For me, these are the small opportunities that can make a big difference in terms of increasing participation and viewership. @MarcusBrown, loved the blog post. This is why we love you.

@aupatking yes, my friend, butt-hurt would definitely be under the banner of americanisms. The Warhawks will return!

@Horton don't worry about it. Lewis Hamilton is going on a roll and going to smash his record. I know you'll love that.

@skidawg it's just not a word that is ever used in the UK. It's what would be called an 'americanism' over there. I'd go with 'most successful'. @Horton http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14201796

@elliehorton this sort of gloating is very upsetting. I thought we were friends. @Horton I'm on your team here but if you came to England (where English was invented) and used the term 'winningest' you would be thrown into the sea in the direction of America before you could finish your sentence.

Great ski site, great organisation, great nationals. I've done a serious amount of different types of tournament in my competitive career but collegiate nationals is the most differentiated and special in a lot of ways. If this sort of template could be used worldwide water skiing would grow hugely.

@LLUSA I would love for skiing to be involved in greater things like being a NCAA. Certainly if that came calling it would be a fantastic thing for the sport and thing would have to be revised as regards paid skiers in schools. My point about pro footballers was more to demonstrate that if they already have a career in the NFL then they have a great way of monetising their talent that few skiers do. @rab I can only talk on behalf of my team (ULM) but this year we didn't even enter a full team so no one is being pushed out for the 'pros' in our ranks. We have 10 skiers, including myself, with 5 overall women and 4 overall men. I put on a trick ski for the team but I couldn't justify hitting a ramp for the first time in 11 years, especially as only the top 4 scores are taken for team points. @Horton the black arm band is out today. On behalf of the team, sorry for letting you down!

@LLUSA I'm guessing you're talking about Collegiate Nationals this year and a lot of the individual titles going to 'pro skiers'. I couldn't disagree more (and not just because I'm enjoying my time in Collegiate skiing). There are a very very few making money as skiers so why would you want to deny skiers from one of the best opportunities to monetise their ability, in a skiing scholarship? The example of an American football pro playing college sports does not stand up as they will easily make money elsewhere. There are a lot of pro skiers at the nationals this weekend across every event (Erika Lang, Josh Briant, KC Wilson, Steve Neveu, Ben Stadlbaur, Dane Mechler, Giannina Bonnemann, Manon Costard and myself off the top of my head). Do you really think the competition would be more fun or interesting without these? I honestly think the standard of skiing would go down if you banned these skiers from the collegiate system. Thomas Degasperi, Will Asher, Ryan Dodd, Regina Jaquess, Natalia Berdnikava and many others were given the opportunity to concentrate on skiing while at school and raised their game hugely. I see no benefits of banning pros. Just my viewpoint.

@GOODESkier I can't remember exactly what I was quoted as saying in WATERSKI but I'm sure it was something along the lines of 'fix yourself before you mess with your ski'. I stand by that and that's one of the great things about the book Jay writes that fin setup is not a substitute for technique, more a compliment to a good technique. I'm far from being a fin fiddler but I know a good solid base fin setup is necessary in order to ski well. This book is helping me with that understanding. Along with all the hardcore fin numbery stuff, a good part of the book is more generally about how the ski is reacting to the water at a given point in the course. When I met Jay last year we talked about his background in motor sport so this explains his insight into movement. I loved this part of the book because it told me things I've never thought about in terms of what my ski is doing and will do in the future. That for me makes it invaluable.