Five of Great Britain’s top waterskiers will compete at one of the biggest international competitions of the year – The Masters in Georgia, USA – this coming weekend.

Spots at the invitation-only professional competition are highly sought after and a place on the podium is a high point of any waterskier’s career.

To have five athletes in the running for medals is proof that GB is one of the most successful waterskiing nations in the world. Three of the skiers already have multiple Masters titles between them.

Only eight skiers will compete in the Men’s Slalom and three of them are British.

They are:

Freddie Winter (35) from Wandsworth in London. The two-time and reigning Men’s Slalom World Champion has won at The Masters twice before. Earlier this month he was back on the podium in a professional competition for the first time since suffering a serious leg injury last summer, which kept him off the water until January.

Will Asher (42) from Lincoln. Asher is a two-time Men's Slalom World Champion and five-time Masters Champion. He won the silver medal at the 2024 Masters. This will be his 21st appearance at the event.

Rob Hazelwood (25) from Lincoln. Hazelwood, who is Asher’s cousin, qualified for the 2025 Masters after winning a professional tournament in Spain last year.

In Men’s Jump, two Britons will be on the start dock. They are jump specialist, Jack Critchley (28), from Scunthorpe in Lincolnshire and Joel Poland (26) from Clapham in London. Both are members of a small elite of waterskiers to have jumped further than 70 metres.

Critchley is a previous Masters medallist but this is his first appearance at the event since 2023.

Poland has won the Men’s Jump at the Masters twice and is the defending Champion. He is the Overall World Record Holder and is widely considered the best 3-event (Slalom, Jump & Tricks) waterskier in the world. Poland will also compete in Men’s Tricks, the event in which he won a bronze medal in 2024.

The Masters Waterski & Wakeboard Tournament will take place at Robin Lake, Callaway Gardens, Pine Mountain, Georgia, USA. The competition begins with the Junior Masters on Friday 23rd May. The preliminary rounds of the main event take place on Saturday 24th with the finals on Sunday 25th.

NOTES FOR EDITORS

For more information, please contact Jane Peel, British Water Ski & Wakeboard Head of Communications on jane@bwsf.co.uk or by phone on 07802 496927.

Photos can be found in the dropbox link. Please credit the photographers, as shown.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/a77edqrfp4n4buuq966s0/ANnM2nY4Rf4Zi54DRcXuNJ8?rlkey=7gu7zjfodcqwzal5cm47oit1z&dl=0

The competition will be livestreamed on the Masters Website at https://masterswaterski.com where you can also find the full schedule and follow the results.

WATERSKIING EXPLAINED

Slalom - The boat travels at a constant speed in a straight line down the middle of the slalom course. At elite level the speed is 58kph (36mph) for men and 55kph (34mph) for women. The skier, on single ski, has to go through the entrance gates - a pair of buoys in the middle of the course - then virage from side to side across the boat wakes, successfully rounding six turn buoys before going through the exit gates.

Each successful pass results in the rope being shortened, making it increasingly difficult to reach the turn buoys. Eventually, the rope length becomes less than the distance from the boat to the turn buoys so the skier has to use body length and reach to round them. The winner is the skier who completes the most turn buoys at the shortest rope length.

Jumping - This dramatic spectator event involves skiing over a ramp at speeds of up to 70mph, taking off and landing on the water to ski away. Each skier has three attempts at the ramp. There are no style points. All that matters is the distance achieved.

Tricks - The skier is given two 20-second passes to complete as many different tricks as possible. These can vary from a simple 180 turn to complex somersaults with twists. There are also ‘toehold’ tricks where the skier holds the rope with one foot. Each trick is worth a given number of points according to difficulty. Points are awarded only if the tricks are deemed to have been successfully performed.

British Water Ski & Wakeboard (BWSW) is the sport’s national governing body and a non-profit making membership organisation. All its income is invested in developing and protecting waterskiing and wakeboarding across the UK from the grassroots to our top athletes.

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