France’s Manon Costard could not have asked for a better way to announce her presence at the 2019 IWWF Waterski World Championships.
The slalom specialist, celebrating her 28th birthday on Thursday, delivered a stunning run to top the women’s preliminaries at the Water Sport Complex, Putrajaya this morning.
Starting 12th in series 1, the Marseille native delivered a masterclass as she finished with a score of 3/55/10.75.
It is a new course record and it saw her overtake previous leader and world No. 4 Jaimee Bull of Canada, who had earlier set the pace with 1/55/10.75.
Defending champion and world No. 1 Regina Jaquess of the US came after Costard but she could only finish with 2/55/10.75 to settle for second with Bull in third place.
And Costard was certainly grinning from ear to ear although her score was not quite at her personal best of 2/55/10.25.
“It was so stressful for me because this is the first round of the worlds and I needed to do well in order to make the final,” said Costard who is only competing in slalom.
“Furthermore there was a rain delay today and it took a while before I got into the water. And there were many before me who were falling at the 12m rope, so I was just trying to stay positive and not mess up like the others.
“I’m also really excited for the course record. I was tired going into the 10.75m rope but I knew I just had to keep going hard and that’s what I did.
“It’s a pretty good birthday for me but now I just have to calm down, relax and get my energy back for the final,” added Costard.
Meanwhile Malaysia’s own Aaliyah Yoong Hanifah also put up a creditable performance to finish joint 22nd out of 41 skiers.
The 16-year-old rescued herself from a bad stance on her third run on the 13m rope before eventually finishing with 2/55/12, just short of her personal best of 3/55/12.
“I think it’s a good score for my overall. I started off pretty chill before it got a bit more intense on the 14.25m rope then I nearly lost it on the 13m rope but I managed to save it,” said Aaliyah.
“It’s a good finish for me and now I can focus on the main thing – tricks. I’m just looking to stand up my runs in order to stand a chance to make the top 12 final.”
In men’s tricks, there was quite an upset with world Under-21 champion Danylo Fil’chenko from Ukraine putting up a sensational 11,620 score to top the preliminaries.
There were quite a few surprising results with world record holder, the 38-year-old Aliaksei Zharnasek of Belarus taking a tumble on his hand pass.
The three-time world champion however recovered strongly on his toe pass to finish with 10,010 for joint 10th with Italy’s Nicholas Benatti.
Defending champion Adam Pickos of the US also nearly suffered a shocking first round exit after he was only awarded 9,770 points to place 12th.
Meanwhile in the afternoon session, the race was abandoned midway through the women’s series 1 of jump due to heavy rain.
At that point, American Brittany Greenwood is currently leading the field with a leap of 49.8m with eight more skiers, including defending champion Jacinta Carroll of Australia, yet to have their turn.
The remaining eight skiers will continue their session on Friday.
