British waterskiers have had yet more success with Joel Poland winning the first stop of the World Waterskiers Overall Tour and Freddie Winter picking up a second place to follow on from two victories.

The latest podiums came at the Lacanau Cup in France on Sunday 2nd July where Joel showed he is still the man to beat in the Overall event, though it was touch and go whether he would do it.

He was leading the field after the slalom and tricks final, having scored 2.5@10.25 metres in slalom – his best of the season – and 10,990 points in trick.

Joel Poland, Lacanau Cup. Photo: Johnny Hayward

As the last man out in the jump final Joel watched as his main rival and local favourite, Louis Duplan-Fribourg of France, leapt a massive personal best of 68.1 metres, breaking the French record. Joel would have to jump more than 64 metres to hold on to the lead.

He made it – just – on his second jump. It was 64.2 metres, giving Joel a total of 2909.51 points to Louis’ 2906.70. Edoardo Marenzi of Italy was third with 2359.51.

Joel Poland, Lacanau Cup. Photo: Johnny Hayward

“I am happy. I was a little stressed after Louis’ big jump. When someone goes out and jumps that big it’s intimidating,” he said.

Earlier in the day, slalom specialist Freddie Winter saved his highest score of the weekend (5@10.25m) for the men’s slalom final in the Malibu Open Lacanau, which was enough to place him second behind Nate Smith of the USA (1@9.75m) and ahead of Brando Caruso of Italy (4@10.25m).

Freddie Winter, Lacanau Cup. Photo: Johnny Hayward

Will Asher was 5th and Rob Hazelwood was 8th. They were among four skiers who tied on 3@10.25m, with the final placings determined by the the preliminary round scores.

Freddie said he was "so happy" with second, not least because he had to use a spare ski on which he’d had little time to practice. His main ski cracked when he suffered a big crash while competing last week.

It was Freddie's third podium in seven days and followed back-to-back wins. On Sunday 25th June, he won the Botaski Pro Am near Madrid, Spain (see our earlier article on this website) which was his first professional win in nine months.

Just three days later he won again at the Monaco Slalom Cup held in Roquebrune-sur-Argens in the south of France, beating the reigning men’s slalom World Champion and world record holder, Nate Smith, in a run-off after the two had tied with 5@10.25m for first place.

Freddie’s tie-break score was 4.5@10.25m and Nate’s 3.5@10.25m

Freddie Winter, Monaco Slalom Cup. Photo: Waterski Nation

Next up on the Waterski Pro Tour is the Kaiafas Battle in Greece this coming weekend (Saturday 8th and Sunday 9th July). It  will be webcast by The Waterski Broadcasting Company. The link to the webcast will be on both the TWBC and the Waterski Pro Tour websites.

Joel’s next competition is stop 2 of the World Waterskiers Overall Tour at Salmsee, Austria, on 14th and 15th July. The finals will be streamed live by World Waterskiers.

Joel Poland, Lacanau Cup. Photo: Johnny Hayward

All the latest results can be found here.