Reigning Junior Water Ski Racing World Champions, Carter Robertson and Nellie McMillan have converted those Championships into Senior World Titles after an exhilarating finish to the 22nd World Water Ski Racing Championships on the New South Wales Central Coast.

Robertson has been a dominant force with Team 50 F1 since Race Day One when he took victory after his brother was eliminated in an early race crash, fracturing a vertebrae.

After leading the final day in the early stages, he was chased down by Lachlan Nix behind Sapphire, who charged through from the second row to take a dominant outright victory.

Robertson finished second in the race, but had done enough with his two race victories to become World Champion at 21 years of age.

Daniel Graziano and Superman were able to carve a hard fought Silver Medal. After not finishing Race Three, Graziano had sustained a leg injury, however soldiered on in the final one hour race to earn second in the world, while Australian Wildcard, Jack Coldrake and Coldys F1 ended their campaign with a podium and third place in the world.

McMillan’s charge to the Women’s Open Championship wasn’t as straightforward. After finishing second in the first two races behind Victorian, Maddison Boyer, Strike F1 charged to the race three win and then, in the World Championship race she required a 19 second victory.

With her father, David behind the steering wheel, McMillan was as far as 15 seconds behind Boyer and Showdown with 10 minutes to go – and then they staged their Championship run.

Not only did the trio catch up with Boyer’s boat, but swung by it with five minutes to go, opening the lead to 17 seconds and when receiving the last lap blue flag were a staggering 39 seconds in front, the Hawkesbury based squad bringing the bright yellow boat home to make the 19-year-old a now Senior World Champion. With Boyer second, Rachael Stapleton completed the podium.

Not so clear cut was Men’s Formula 2. In what has been a tight battle since the boats first hit the water last Saturday, Championship leader Aiden Cuff, who fell away from Revenge midway through the race.

Coming home to take the race was youngster Jake Clancy, who got the win behind Agent 86 over Speed Lab’s Sam McKenzie and Brendan Tidswell with The Dragon. This earned Clancy a podium finish in the overall World Championship results.

Despite having a DNF midway through the event, on the best three races count Championship pointscore, Tidswell did enough to claim the World Title by just three points.

Molly Palser behind Speed Lab completed her Women’s Formula 2 campaign with a hard fought race win. It was enough to secure the podium in the World Championship after a solid campaign that saw her in the top three all the way through.

By finishing second, Emma Barnes did enough to secure the World Title after a campaign that saw her on top of the division for most of the time.

The Belgian team celebrated a terrific end to their World Water Ski Racing Championships with a podium for Black Jack and Demi Fobelets.

Completing an outstanding World Championship and Race Day Four for Speed Lab, Kohdi Cartledge took a dominant win in Junior Boys wrapping up that Championship, while his sister, Leilani, put the icing on the cake after wrapping up the Junior Girls on Wednesday by taking out the Junior Girls race behind Gro Up.

Race Day Two winner in Boys, Zak Armstrong took Epic to second place with local, Jaali Walsh finishing third, earning himself a place on the World Championship podium.

Leilani was followed home in the Girls by Jaali’s twin, Kianna, who secured second in the Championship and Cosmos’s Tijana Lalor.

Australia dominated the World Championship wrapping up each Title and therefore the Team’s Championship and accepting the Federation Teams Trophy over the United States and New Zealand.

The 22nd Champions of The World were crowned at Drifters Wharf adjacent to the startline for the four races of fury throughout the 10 day event.

CHAMPIONS:
– Junior Girls – Leilani Cartledge
– Junior Boys – Kohdi Cartledge
– F2 Women – Emma Barnes
– Open Women – Nellie McMillan
– F2 Men – Brendan Tidswell​​​​​​​
– Open Men – Carter Robertson
-Teams – Australia