Three events taking place in two different cities will constitute the Water Skiing competition schedule, to run from tomorrow to Saturday.
The Tricks and Wakeboard events will be held at the “Hera” Venue, while Slalom will be hosted by the artificial lake Stratos facilities in Agrinio, on the opposite coast of the Patras Bay.
The events will feature 44 athletes from five countries (Cyprus, France, Italy, Tunisia and hosts Greece).
In the Slalom event, nine male and seven female athletes will participate, while the respective numbers for Tricks and Wakeboard will be 8-7 and 7-6. In total, 18 medals are there for the taking, to be contested by big names of the sport. Most of those athletes will be in good shape, coming right from the World Championships held from the 13th to the 18th of August in Malaysia.
Top-ranked athletes include the following:
– France’s Pierre BALLON (No 2 in world rankings) and Ambre FRANC (5th in the World Championships Slalom event).
– Italy’s Julia MOLINARI (a Wakeboard medalist in the World Championships), Alice VIRAG (the Wakeboard European Champion), Greta TAGLIATI (a multi-medalist in European Championships), Federico BELLINI (also a medalist in Wakeboard in the World Championships), Igor COLOMBO (former medalist in the European and World Championships) and Nicolas BENATTI (the Slalom and Tricks National Champion).
The Greek team will be led by its flag bearer in the Opening Ceremony, Angeliki ANDRIOPOULOU, also one of the biggest names worldwide and an avid collector of medals. Nikolaos PLYTAS, the Pescara 2015 Tricks bronze medalist, and Athanasios KOUSATHANAS, a medalist in the European Seniors Championships in Ioannina in July, will also compete for medals.
On Greece’s presence in the Water Skiing events, ANDRIOPOULOU estimates: “We will win several medals, as we are competing at home and fans will give us energy to fight the teams from France and Italy.”
Action starts on Thursday August 29th at Lake Stratos with the Slalom event (10:00-12:00), and later at “Hera” with Tricks (14:30-16:00) and Wakeboard (17:30-20:30).