British waterskiers are continuing their strong summer form with wins for Freddie Winter and Joel Poland in Italy and Austria at the weekend plus a podium for Will Asher.

Freddie was victorious at the San Gervasio Pro Am slalom near Milan where Will Asher finished third. Joel won the second stop of the World Overall Tour held at Salmsee in Austria.

Freddie has not missed a podium so far in 2023 and this is his 5th of the year in Europe where the professional circuit moved after several events earlier in the season in the USA. He is showing the kind of form that saw him become World Champion in men’s slalom in 2017.

“Five podiums, three wins, two seconds, ninth podium of the year out of nine events. - it’s just been a good year, maybe my favourite year so far,” he said.

“I’m 33 years old. I’m no longer a young guy, I’m not even a medium guy, I’m an old guy…. I couldn’t be happier.”

Freddie equalled the course record of 1 buoy on 9.75 metres in round one of the competition and he knocked out two fellow Brits on his way to the win.

The last eight fought head-to-head KO battles, starting on 12m, with the skiers in different boats taking on the same line length one after the other before shortening until there was a winner. First Freddie took down Rob Hazelwood in his quarter final. Then he got the better of Will Asher in his semi final. 

In the final, Freddie was on the water first.  He scored 5@10.25m which proved too much for Italy’s Thomas Degasperi who followed up with 1@ 10.25m. Will Asher took the third spot on the podium as he was the highest scorer of the losing semi-finalists.

Will has finished in third place in three of the five European professional competitions that have taken place in the last month.

“I felt good within myself. I felt I was skiing well coming in and, on the day, I just wasn’t putting it together as I would have liked to,” he said.

“It would have been nice to finish more passes and get higher scores but, generally, I’m happy. Now we take an easy week, try to recover as much as we can.”

Joel Poland's victory came in stop two of the four-stop World Overall Tour organised by World Waterskiers at Salmsee near Linz in Austria.

It's his second consecutive win, following on from stop one of the tour in Lacanau in France two weeks ago. Louis Duplan-Fribourg of France was second and Edoardo Marenzi of Italy was third.

The next stop of the World Waterskiers Overall Tour is in Calgary, Canada, starting on Friday 4th August.