T
he rise and rise and the growing
stature of the UIM-ABP tour is
reflected in the huge entry this season,
topping out with an incredible 91 rider
registrations from 19 countries at the
last event in Italy. “The level of entry
in all the categories is very high. We
have many Champions, the best riders
in the World and the competition is
an incredible standard,” commented
Portugal’s Ski GP1 ace Tiago Sousa.
“The event weekends are a very very
good standard. There is no better Championship, no better
competition. This is the best in the World.”
Highlighting the ‘best in the world’ tag is the splattering of World
Champions - not to mention European and National Champions
- across the categories; in Runabout Cyrille Lemoine, Francois
Medori, Mattia Fracasso, Teddy Pons, in Ski Mickael and Jeremy
Poret, Alberto Monti, Chris MacClugage and in Freestyle the
Florjancic brothers Rok and Nac and Valerio Calderoni.
The season this far has delivered on all fronts, great action,
heartache and elation, memorable moments and great
entertainment on and off the water.
The opening round in Doha, Qatar produced a feast of breath
taking close-quarter racing; French duo Cyrille Lemoine and
Teddy Pons went head-to-head and locked out the top two spots
in the points table in Runabout sharing a win apiece, Lemoine
winning race 1 Pons winning race 2 by less than a bike’s length,
with two Qatari riders Waleed Al Sharshani and Mohammed Al
Heidus producing great performances to take third and fourth
overall.
But the shock of the weekend was the second consecutive non-
points tally in Qatar for defending World Champion Yousef Al
Abdulrazzaq, the Kuwaiti rider red-flagged in race 1 for going the
wrong way on the course and then breaking in race 2 after a
spirited drive from the back of the pack to challenge at the front
when his engine let go.
In Ski it was the first round of Europe versus USA, Jeremy Poret
versus Chris MacClugage, the Frenchman marking his return to
the Championship after a year out with a double win and the
Qatar GP title after the unfortunate American, who finished
second in race 1, broke on the penultimate lap leading race 2 to
end up in seventh overall.
Tiago Sousa once again delivered two consistent performances
to take second overall ahead of Ludo Caumont, with defending
Champion Mickael Poret in fifth behind Alberto Monti. In the
Ladies division Jenifer Menard grabbed both race wins and the
title over Estelle Poret and Marta Sorrentino.
Defending World Champion Rok Florjancic started this year as
he closed out the last one, dominating the Freestyle show to
extend his unbeaten run to grab yet another GP title ahead of
brother Nac, with Sultan Al Kuwari the best of the rest in third.
The UIM-ABP tour closed out the first half of the year in real style
with a mix of high octane racing, aerial insanity, courtesy of the
Freestylers, and all matched with the high-energy sounds of the
inaugural Aquabike Music Festival at Milan’s Idroscalo.
AQUABIKE
The season this far has
delivered on al l fr onts,
great action, heartache and
elation, memorable moments
and great entertainment on
and off the water.
10 | H20 MAGAZINE - SEPTEMBER 2014
h2oracing.net
