35th Water Ski Worlds Begins Tuesday

The 35th Water Ski World Championships will be held Tuesday through Sunday in Putrajaya, Malaysia. The United States will be represented by a six-member team and several independent athletes at the biennial event. To view the field of competitors, schedule of events and live scoring, visit http://www.iwwfed-ea.org/classic/19IWWF02/. To view the live webcast, click here. Putrajaya is 12 hours ahead of U.S. Eastern Daylight Time.

Members of the U.S. Elite Water Ski Team are: Taylor Garcia (Winter Garden, Fla.), Anna Gay (Winter Garden, Fla.), Regina Jaquess (Santa Rosa Beach, Fla.), Freddy Kreuger (Winter Garden, Fla.), Erika Lang (Gilbert, Ariz.) and Adam Pickos (Santa Rosa Beach, Fla.).

The United States is seeking to win the world team gold medal for the 28th time in the history of the event. The United States is the defending world champion.

Jeff Surdej (Wilmington, Ill.) will serve as the coach, Jody Johnson (Nashville, Tenn.) is the team captain, and Dr. Marc Aiken (Johnson City, Tenn.) will be the team physician. 

In addition to the coveted world team title, athletes from more than 25 countries will compete for individual medals in slalom, tricks, jumping and overall at the Worlds. Defending individual gold medalists are: Jacinta Carroll (Australia), women’s jumping; Ryan Dodd (Canada), men’s jumping; Neilly Ross (Canada), women’s tricks; Regina Jaquess (USA), women’s slalom and overall; Adam Pickos (USA), men’s tricks; Felipe Miranda (Chile), men’s overall; and Frederick Winter (Great Britain), men’s slalom.