LF Dominates the 2nd Stop of Aussie Pro Tour!

Australian Pro Tour of Wakeboarding Stop #2

Date: 2/2/09

Related Links:
Australian Pro Tour of Wakeboarding – Stop #1

The second round of the Air Nautiques Australian Pro Tour of Wakeboarding at Stoney Park in Port Macquarie saw a reverse order of our top two spots in both the Pro Men and Pro Women divisions. The stage is now set for a nail biting final round in Nudgee Beach, QLD with the title race still wide open and a completely new format being introduced for the decider.

Harley Clifford (2nd), Jimmy LaRiche (1st) and Trevor Hansen (3rd)
Stoney Park, being a dedicated wakeboarding lake, added sliders into the mix for the first time this year and the Super Air Nautique 210 delivered a faultless wake in the just over 5-foot deep lake. Last year’s reigning champion Dean Smith, who was forced to miss the 2009 tour due to injury, added his technical opinion to our already expert panel of judges and in the results we saw some surprise results in both the qualification and head-to-head finals rounds.

In the Pro Women division, last week’s runner up, Hayley Smith, who missed the top spot by 0.4 of a point last week to the U.S.A.’s Melissa Marquadt, applied her rail park wizardry and edged Melissa out to take the win for the second stop of this year’s tour. This puts the two of them in a dead heat for the title coming into the final round next week. Last year’s tour champion, Amber wing, is following very closely in third place and hasn’t ruled out blitzing the girls in stop 3 and claiming
Melissa Marquardt (2nd), Hayley Smith (1st) and Amber Wing (3rd)
back her overall title. Stop 3 is once again a wake-only event, so it will be down to the wire to see who takes home the tour champion trophy.

In the Pro Men division, last week’s third place getter, Thailand’s PJ Bomb struggled to come to grips with the new wake shape despite his brand new Liquid Force team ride and opted out in the fist head-to-head round against a young and hungry World Junior Champion in Sam Thomson, while to advance from the rest of the heats it was a case of the “usual suspects.” The top eight looked much like last week’s semi final round and when it was all said and done, it was once again four riders from three separate countries that would fight for the $6,800 cash prize.

Pro Men
1. Jimmy LaRiche
2. Harley Clifford
3. Trevor Hansen
4. Jeff Weatherall
===
5t. Brad Smeele
5t. Aaron Rathy
5t. Jarrod Askew
5t. Sam Thomson
9. Padiwat “Bomb” Jaemjan
10. Corey Bradley
11. Chris O’Shea
12. Troy Mackey
13. Brenton Priestley
14. Ryliegh Pfitzner
15. Ray Dopper
16. Scott Mackey

Pro Women
1. Hayley Smith
2. Melissa Marquart
3. Amber Wing
4. Shelby Kantar
===
5. Rebecca Grange
6. Caitlin Blaauw

Jr. Men
1. Jacob Hore
2. Brad Teunissen
3. Mitch Askew
===
4. Tony Iacconi
5. Nik Gibson
6. Corey Teunissen

Jr. Women
1. Rebecca Frangi
2. Tanisha Iacconi
3. Krystal Oliver