Tuesday, March 12: The French trio of François Medori, Mickael Poret, Jessica Chavanne and Italy’s Roberto Mariani were honoured for  their respective  UIM-ABP World Championship titles in the Runabout GP1, Ski Division GP1, Ski Ladies GP1 and Freestyle categories at the official UIM annual awards’ ceremony hosted by UIM President Dr. Raffaele Chiulli at the Fairmont Hotel in Monaco on Saturday night.

"It is always a great honour to celebrate the remarkable achievements of our UIM World Champions, whose dedication, perseverance, and outstanding skills have elevated them to the pinnacle of the discipline in which they compete,” said UIM President Chiulli.

In addition, Chavanne was awarded a special trophy for being nominated as the UIM Driver of the Year for 2023. The French girl said: “This is a huge honour for me. There is a lot of emotion. I did not expect this. It is amazing. This is not only for the result of the season but it represents all the hard work put into jet ski racing over lots of years. We have a good friendship within aquabike. We have battles on the water but it is a really good atmosphere in the paddock. I love the challenge of the competition and the friendship of the riders. I also see an improvement in the technology in the future with a focus on the sustainability to attract more people to the sport.”

Speaking about claiming his second world title and his first since 2012, Medori said: “I came back to the Aquabike World Championship in 2021 and, after finishing second last year, I knew that I could win again. It was a great season for us. The work of my team was so important. My ski was reliable and fast and I trained a lot for this.”

The 2024 UIM-ABP Aquabike World Championship gets underway at Quy Nhon in the province of Bình Đinh in central Vietnam on March 22nd-24th.