Friday, 6 September, VIVERONE (Italy): Forty-seven riders from 13 countries played out the opening day of the Grand Prix of Italy on Lake Viverone with Freestyler Rok Florjancic, Ski Gp1’s Michael Poret and Runabout’s Cyrille Lemoine delivering the stand-out performances in this afternoon’s qualifying sessions.
The opening round of the UIM-ABP Aquabike Class Pro World Championship saw 22 riders in Runabout and 18 in Ski men and women take on the 1930metre, 28-pin anticlockwise circuit, with a strong turnout of seven in Freestyle registering for their second Grand Prix of the year, including the youngest competitor of the weekend, 15-year old Semen Fayfman from Russia.
Qualifying was split into two 15 and 10 minute sessions with the top ten progressing from Q1 to Q2.
Runabout’s former World Champion and last year’s number 2 Cyrille Lemoine improved from third quickest in Q1 to take pole position in a time of 1:30.83secs in a very tight second session with just over a second separating the top three.
Jeremy Perez made a good start to his 2013 campaign completing the one-two for France – edged out by just 5/10ths, with the sole Middle East rider, Kuwait’s Youssef Al Abdulrazzaq enjoying a stellar afternoon, topping the time sheets in Q1 and qualifying in third overall.
Defending World Champion Francois Medori was unusually off the pace, finishing fifth quickest behind Teddy Pons. The big casualty of the day was Italy’s Mattia Fracasso who failed to post a time.
Ski GP1’s 2010 World Champion Michael Poret celebrated his return to competition after a year out with a measured top six performance in Q1 and then posting the fastest time of 1:51.45secs in Q2, just 1.38seconds quicker than Spain’s Nacho Armillas, with Italy’s Alberto Monti third fastest.
Slovenia’s Pija Sumer was impressive and the best of the ladies, making the cut with the tenth best time but failed to get out too try to improve her time. France’s Jennifer Menard posted a 12th best time with Marta Sorentino in 16th.
The Freestylers rounded out the afternoon and despite a strong Russian presence and the defending World Champion in the mix, Slovenian star and Sanya Grand Prix winner Rok Florjancic was simply outstanding and in a class of his own, easily getting the judges votes across all three categories for variety, style and quantity to top the table with 90 points.
Despite a strong performance Nac Florjancic trailed his brother home in second place ahead of Russian UIM-ABP debutant Aresniy Matantse, with young Semen Fayfman picking up his first World Championship points in seventh.