The World Water Skiers Overall Tour has made its way to Alberta to showcase the skills of the best water skiers across the world.
From July 29-31 the tour will be competing in Calgary at Predator Bay as their second of four stops. The first competition happened earlier this month in Lacanau, France and after Calgary they will head to Fischlham, Austria followed by the United States.
Innisfail’s Jaret Llewellyn and his wife are the main promoters of the tour and he also coaches a few of the Canadian skiers in the competition. Llewellyn was also a professional water skier for over 30 years before he retired from the sport.
During each stop on the tour, there are male and female competitors from four different countries who compete against their own genders in jump, trick, and slalom. There is a cup to be won at each stop on the tour with one overall champion to be crowned after the final competition.
So far he said they’re getting great feedback from those who have attended and that the Calgary stop will be one of their marquee events of the year.
“We have more support at this event than any other four stops, which I’m proud about because I’m Canadian and Canadians like to do it right. On the website you have to download a parking pass, which is all free but we’re just trying to get numbers and we have over 300 cars already registered,” he explained. “If more people know about it we could see a couple of thousand people down here, which is really great.”
Llewellyn said that worldwide there are a lot of people who love water skiing but the professional side is not very well represented and that’s what this tour is for to grow the game.
“We used to be on ESPN and we used to be on TSN but sports have gone more to streaming and stuff like that,” he said. “We’re streaming the event worldwide and is a great opportunity for the club, which Predator Bay is an incredible club.”
France’s Louis Duplan-Fribourg won the first competition on the men’s side and Canadian Paige Rini won the women’s cup. However, due to illness Rini will not compete in Calgary due to illness. She was the only Canadian competitor among the women but on the men’s side, Conley Pinette and Jaret’s son Dorien Llewellyn are both Canadian.
This will be the first high-scale event in Alberta since the World Championships in 2009, which was one of the biggest events Llewellyn has seen. He hopes to get the Overall Tour stops to get to that level of attendance.
For more information on this event visit worldwaterskiers.com.