Hugh Donaldson flies through the air during a trip to the US and Canada. Photo supplied.Ashburton’s waterskiing twins Hugh and George Donaldson have topped off a big few weeks in the US and Canada, by notching up some top scores at tournaments in Florida.

After competing at the under-21 world championships in Edmonton, Canada, the 19-year-olds headed to Florida in the US for 10 days of training with former top Kiwi waterskier Kyle Ede, who was now based in Florida and worked as a coach.

While there they took part in two tournaments, both on Eade’s Ski Fluid ski school site just out of Orlando, and both Hugh and George were keen to put up some good scores, which they did.

The Florida State championships were held last weekend and due to the large number of entries it was a one-round-only tournament.

George slalomed an equal personal best (PB) of four bouys on the 12m line, and both jumped to their PBs.

Then, after a solid week of training on site, they competed in this past weekend’s Polk City Open tournament, where George was thrilled to land his three flips and stand up his A tricks run in both rounds, scoring a best of 4610 points.

Hugh also produced a new jump PB of 54.2m.

Both had been jumping well all week, but a thunderstorm hit late in the tournament, delaying the jump event and eventually causing it to be cancelled, so unfortunately they didn’t get their second opportunity to score.

In Florida they have to get off the water as the lightning strikes often reached the ground.

The training and tournaments during what was the boys’ polytech holidays back in New Zealand, were a great experience and were handy in the lead-up to the worlds in Canada.

But, the experience should instead benefit them in a few weeks’ time when they again head abroad for their next big challenge, the open worlds which are being held in August.

At the under-21 worlds in Canada, George produced the four-strong Kiwi team’s best trick score of 3880, while Hugh produced a jump of 51.2 metres to finish 18th equal overall in the jump.

New Zealand finished 11th overall out of the 22 countries.

© The Ashburton Guardian - 23 July 2019