WATERSKIING - Waterskiers raise the bar at Kai Iwi Lakes

Kamo waterskier Sarah Wainwright's national record was one of the highlights of the Anniversary Weekend tournament at Kai Iwi Lakes.
Wainwright, a 33-year-old, broke the New Zealand Senior 1 (30-40 years) Slalom record by successfully completing two buoys on the 13m line. She had earlier completed the course using 18m, 16m and 14m lines, all at 55km/h.
"That's the best that any New Zealand women has ever done in that age group, so that was a big feat to achieve," Northland president Glen Williams said.
There was competitive skiing on the lake for three days, attracting more than 50 skiers, but the Northland hosts also had their fair share of success.
Cole Atkinson won the men's open jump event with a good jump of 54.3m, short of his Northland record of 57.1m, but too far for Auckland's Lance Green and James McDonald who finished in second and third place respectively.
Atkinson's younger sister Toni, who won gold at the Asian-Australasian water-skiing championships in South Korea late last year, continued her fine form to clean-up in the under-18 women's event. Emily Donald and Georgia O'Connell were second and third respectively.
The highlight of the weekend for many waterskiers was to watch New Zealand slalom champion Aaron Larkin in action. Larkin is the fourth ranked slalom skier in the world and won the Kai Iwi event hands down.
"Larkin cleaning up was no real surprise to anyone here but he also won the head-to-head slalom competition on Sunday evening and took home the cash prize," Williams said.
One of Larkin's protege's, local Curtis Williams, posted personal best scores in all three events and took out the junior boys tile ahead of Auckland's Landon Wade and fellow Northlander Zac Weller.
The men's tricks competition was won by Cameron Evans, with Green second and Cole Atkinson third.