The 62nd Nautique Masters Waterski and Wakeboard Championships saw some new faces on the podium this year for the Pro Men’s and Pro Women’s divisions. After a hard fought day of semifinals, the 10 Pro Men and 8 Pro Women invited to the prestigious event were whittled down to only 4 athletes advancing to each of the finals.
With some predictable athletes easily winning their semifinal heats, such as Nautique Team Riders and former Nautique Masters Champions Cory Teunissen (AUS) and Mary Morgan Howell (USA) there were also some surprising results that no one could have foreseen. Last year’s Nautique Masters Men’s Champion Guenther Oka (USA) narrowly missed-out on advancing to the finals by way of the extraordinary performance of England’s young and talented Luca Kidd landing a Wreckingball 540 and a halfcab double backroll. For the women, the young Australian McKenzie McCarthy, who shocked the wake world earlier this year at the Nautique Moomba Masters by taking 2nd place and earning her first Pro Women’s podium, once again proved herself a force to be reckoned with as she claimed another 2nd place podium in the Nautique Wake Series.
In the end the victories went to the two Nautique athletes, Mary Morgan Howell and Cory Teunissen, who both landed stand-up runs in the finals. Mary Morgan, earning her 2nd consecutive Nautique Masters victory, did so with a crowmobe, a roll-to-blind, and a tantrum to blind to end her near perfect run. Teunissen climbed to victory with a series of 900’s, doubleflips, and a 720 off the double-up that sealed the deal above Luca Kidd in 2nd place (his first professional podium), and Tyler Higham in 3rd.
For more information on the Nautique Masters visit MastersWaterski.com, and be sure to check out the full Nautique Wake Series on Nautique.com. Stop #3 of the Nautique Wake Series will be taking place in Auburndale, FL on Aug 4-7 as riders from all across the nation travel the Nautique WWA Wakeboard National Championships presented by GM Marine.
