After a great start to her campaign in China, with a 1st in the Asian Cup, Amber was a tough competitor during the World Cup Stop the following weekend. After spending the week between contest sight seeing and taking in the Chinese way of life Amber was relaxed and ready to go! With the best woman's competitors in the world such as Dallas Friday (USA), Nicola Butler (SA) and Raimi Merritt (USA) the Chinese spectators were sure to be in for a show.
Like many contests around the world, conditions are not quite what the riders would prefer, though defiantly ads and extra element to the competition highlighting who the strongest riders are. As always Amber handled the rough water fairly well unfortunately falling on her highest scoring technical trick, the whirly, though still managed to ride away from a toe side off axis 540 and off axis 360. This placed Wing in 3rd place behind past world champion Dallas Friday who had some big raley tricks and technical inverts in her pass, and event Champion Raimi Merritt who impressed the judges with an S-bend.
The men's division showed some very familiar faces with tour veteran Philip Soven taking first. Second place wen to Australian Harley Clifford, whom has just taken claim to the US Pro tour title on his rookie year and Canada's Rusty Malinoski rounding out the podium places
JUMP
Jump water skiing was also apart of this World Cup stop, this discipline is known for exciting the crowd and the competitors did not disappoint. The two favourites coming into Liuzhou were Jaret Llwellyn (CAN) and World Champion Freddy Krueger (USA). Llewellyn did not qualify for the semifinals, taking a lot of pressure off the shoulders of Krueger. Russia's Igor Morozov set the pace from the start with a distance of 50.7m. Only Jason Seels (GBR) could beat this with 51.3m. Krueger was last out, knew what he had to do and got a standing ovation with a distance of 57.5m to take the Liuzhou City World Jump Cup title.
The Women's Jump event attracted athletes from five countries. Right from the start, Iryna Turets from Belarus set the pace in the semifinals with a jump distance of 37.0 m. Nobody could beat this. On entering the finals, she actually looked set to take the Liuzhou City World Cup Jump title. In the end it was a very close
Pro Men Wakeboarding
1. Phillip Soven (USA)
2. Harley Clifford (AUS)
3. Rusty Malinoski (CAN)
Pro Women Wakeboarding
1. Raimi Merritt (USA)
2. Dallas Friday (USA)
3. Amber Wing (AUS)
Pro Men Jump
1. Freddy Krueger (USA)
2. Jason Seels (GBR)
3. Igor Morozov (RUS)
Pro Women Jump
1. Natalia Berdnikova (BLR)
2. Iryna Turets (BLR)
3. June Fladborg (DEN)
