Loch Stock Tour Final 09

For the final tour stop of the 2009 Loch-Stock series, the team brought their undeniable passion for wakeboarding to Townhill, Dunfermiline, the Scottish National Waterski Centre. With more girls than at any of the other tour stops, organiser and coach Sammy Filsell led the way in getting the girls fired up for the training day on Saturday. The sun came out for the girls’ boat sets, smiles firmly switched on and Sammy’s voice cranked to the max as she pushed the girls out of their comfort zones into the realms of bigger pop and more aggression.

Jenny Parker, a regular rider throughout the tour showed consistent improvement getting both her heel side and toe side wake to wakes solid. Her boundless exhilaration for the wakeboarding raised a few eyebrows and laughs as her kamikaze reputation for mounting the bank, led to her, this time, nearly taking out a family of swans and charging into the ski jump! Jenny’s infectious enthusiasm for wakeboarding has also seen her travel to Bulgaria and it’s great to have her getting competitions like this under her belt too. Jenny’s working out her notice period with her job in the army saying, “I’m going to be a bum! All I want to do is wakeboard !”. You can’t argue with that kind of love for the sport.

Claire Lampard was told by her boyfriend that if she was going to start seeing him, she’d have to get into wakeboarding! So Claire avoided being a ‘wake widow’ and fully accepted wakeboarding as the ‘third party’ in their life! And what a happy threesome they are! Claire has travelled to the Dominican and Bulgaria as well, fuelling her passion for wakeboarding! Well she showed off her skills with an impressive back side butterslide and improved confidence with her wake to wakes.

The biggest smiles were saved for the last rider youngster Eilidh Harrower who bore the brunt of Sammy’s coaching, but reaped the biggest rewards… and the biggest smiles! With a boat full of girls, anything is possible and Sammy’s repeated demands to cut wider and harder saw little Eilidh go from single wake jumps to poppy wake to wakes in her set!

The weekend is as much about the wakeboarding as it is the Saturday night party! And so it was that the fine honed athletes preparing for the Sunday competition were still up at half past four in the morning, break dancing, posing for HOTM !!!, moshing and climbing trees! All this in the grounds of the most opulent campsite in Scotland!

So through the mist of ‘Vitamin T’ and unexplained bruises, Sunday and competition day came round all too soon. From the start the girls showed that they’re up for a challenge as little Eilidh Harrower went up against an all boy group in the Juniors. She showed off all her confidence from the training day attacking each wake jump with lots more confidence and assertion. Well done.

Then the eight strong open Ladies group left the dock; 2 passes and a wild card trick. There was a good display of heel and toeside jumps and lots of the girls riding switch. Tabz Nixon was the first to show off a heel side wake to wake 180 and then a series of indy and tail grabs. Some got over excited by it all and Sarah Rogerson’s cool slashing up the wake saw her cut too hard and fall whilst Claire and Shona Macleod fell on their wild cards after a range of good heel and toe side jumps.

The remaining three ladies upped the anti with Jenny just dropping the handle on her heel side 360 earning her Bronze, Becky Hall cramming in an impressive array of tail grabs, toe side roast beefs, stalefish, slob 180s, but fell on her backroll leaving her in Silver position. Becky has been plagued all season with a broken foot, so it was good to see her riding well despite her injury. Finally on the water was the stop and overall tour winner Sammy Filsell who went big and poppy on every grab and impressing the crowd with her stylie toe side shifty! But the victory was sealed with her backroll and heel side 360 as wild card.

The Loch Stock tour 2009 has been a resounding success in brining the passion of Scottish wakeboarding to everyone’s attention. The superbly organised events by the unrelenting crew Gordy Forsyth, Sammy Filsell, Jamie Adams and James Bowler, are a real credit to wakeboarding, not only by giving wakeboarding more exposure, but by making it so accessible and fun for everyone to get involved with. Scotland has some of the most beautiful scenery to ride at. Loch Lomond top of WAW’s list. www.lochlomondwakeboard.com

Look out for Loch Stock 2010, set to be bigger and better! www.loch-stock.com

All three ladies received a Wide-A-Wake goodie bag as part of their win, so a huge thank you to Surfdome, Shewee, Vitabiotics for their on going support of WAW and women in wakeboarding.

Thursday 27 August 2009 | Permalink