Friday, 15 May: Norwegian ace Stian Schjetlein is another UIM-ABP World Championship tour rider in Porec [Croatia] this weekend for the first round of the UIM-ABP Aquabike European Continental Championship and is predicting rough conditions. “We have spent a few days here in beautiful Porec at the lovely race site. It also seems that we will have the chance of a race in really rough conditions with waves over a metre, metre and a half and big rollers coming in from the sea, which I really like and am hoping for.”

The 23-year-old from Bergen, who spends a lot of his time in Lake Havasu, Arizona in the USA working for Pro Watercraft Racing as a test rider and parts developer, recently flew home to compete in the Norwegian Championship, winning all his races. “I headed back to Havasu after Qatar to work on our new hull and to train in the sunny conditions while the snow continued to fall in Norway, but it was good to get home for a few days, to race and to win.”

Schjetlein, who sits in sixth place in the [World] Championship standings, also revealed that Swedish star, Emma-Nellie Ortendahl from Alvangar, has joined his outfit and that the two will be working together for the rest of the season.

Sixteen-year-old Ortendahl showed why she is considered a star of the future in Qatar, finishing third overall and stealing the limelight form her peers winning the Parallel Slalom, taking out world number 2, Estelle Poret in the semis and beating reigning World Champion Jennifer Menard in the final.