With glorious sunshine for the first day of finals, the Masters Ladies took to the water as a division for the first time in the competition’s eleven year history. Up until now the masters have had to compete along side their younger counterparts in the Open division, but hopefully now, more older ladies will join in the fun. 

First off the dock was Sarah Kingdom, UK National title holder with a backlip 270 off the first slider. Not many girls were heading for the slider, but opting for the dargon rail, so this helped boulster her points. With a series of small surface tricks, she then got in her left foot raley, a roast beef grab before fitting in a scarecrow and boardsliding the A frame. Frustratingly, in her second run, Sarah didn’t manage to land her switch krypt that she just pulled together in practice, so her first run stood.

German Eva Koch was next and with her years of high level competition experience, brought both a backroll and roll to revert to the table with good solid sliding on the rails. This was enough to see her qualify in first place over Sarah. Finally Alex Gardiner, in her first Team GB competition, laid down a solid run boardsliding the dragon rail and the A frame and, to her delight, recovered her floaty tantrum. The Masters Ladies qualified Eva, Sarah and Alex for the final in the afternoon.

Not surprisingly, latecomer to the competition, world Champion Maxine Sapulette, breezed through the Open Ladies LCQ with a cool S-bend to secure her place in tomorrow’s final. In between divisions, the boys were handed ‘obstacle wetting duties’ as whilst the spectators were topping up their tans, the kickers and sliders were getting dry and ‘sticky’. Luckily for the girls, World Champion Nick Davies took his responsibilities very seriously treating us to fashion airs and board sliding backwards as he wet the obstacles !!!

The first of the female finals was the Girls division where Chloe Goudie yesterday showed great consistency in nailing her re-run after a line obstructed her run. Her final was no different where she got a raley, krypt and heel side 360 in before boardsliding the fun box. However it wasn’t quite enough to fend off the run from current European Champion Anna Laura Brabander, who included an S-Bend, roll to revert and blind judge. With only a 4 point score difference and Silver Medal position, it was clear that Chloe’s tricks were so huge and stylie that she’ll be a force to be reckoned with for years to come.

The second female final of the day was that of the Masters. First up was Alex qualifying third who showed good solid sliding and got her tantrum in again. Then came Sarah who repeated her run from qualifiers but cleaner in her board sliding and with a bigger raley. But when she came to do her scarecrow, she went too big and landed heavy on her right leg injuring her knee. But having ridden away from the trick, it still scored and despite not being able to ride her second run, managed to secure Silver. Eva was last up and cruised into first place with her back roll and roll to revert.

In the Boys competition Freddie Carter laid down an intimidating run to take the Gold and in the Mini Boys, Scott Rosewell and Liam Peacock were awarded Gold and Silver respectively. In the first day of finals, Team GB took half the medal haul, not a bad day’s work!