The Mad-City Ski Team Dominates the Water [video]

Source: E-Nation: The Mad-City Ski Team Dominates The Water!

Ending Pyramid

The Mad-City Ski Team took 2nd place at the 2011 Wisconsin State Water Ski Show Tournament held on Lake Wazecha in Wisconsin Rapids, WI on July 23. You can now view our full show online.

Mad-City 2011 State Tournament Show [video]

The video is available in HD, so be sure to change the YouTube settings to view it in 720p and make it full screen if your bandwidth allows.

After a long week of practice in some very hot and humid weather, Friday evening arrived and the team met for our now routine night before meeting, going through all of responsibilities during the setup and tear down times as well as practicing all of our intros and dances.

Saturday morning arrived and, just like the rest of the week so far, it was hot and humid with some storms looming on the radar, but show time finally arrived. It was still hot and still humid and the wind was just starting to pick up a little bit.

Here are some pictures from our show…

Backfoot Line

Opening Pyramid

Bell Sisters Barefoot Fliers in Montage

Chris on the Wakeboard in Montage

Jeff on the Sky Ski in Montage

Amanda in Swivel

One Act Show

Double Heli & Double Fronts

Ballet Line on the Dock

Ballet Line on the Water

The Ballet Line Flashdance Dance

After ballet, Big Act was ready to go on the dock when the wind picked up dramatically, to the point where the backdrops were nearly blown over…

The Backdrop Nearly Coming Down

After a roughly 30 minute delay, the front moved through, the wind died down and the storms seemed to miss us. With the backdrops back in place, the show started back up…

Toe Turn Line

Trios

Conventional Doubles

Tandem Barefoot

Tandem Doubles with Two 720 Swivelers

Tandem Pyramid

The Presto Prefab 4-High

Supersized Pinwheel

Ending Pyramid

After our ending pyramid, with time left on the clock, the team made the decision to re-run our ballet act (which had been partially pinned the first time.) The re-run paid off as they performed the water routine and stage dance again, this time, both flawlessly.

Overall, the team skied a very good show. With the exception of our jump acts which struggled a bit and ballet being pinned and needing to be re-run, the overall show was actually very clean. The team finished the marathon show in the heat and humidity knowing we had skied our hearts out and entertained the crowd.

Here’s a 9-minute version of our 60-minutes show…

2011 Wisconsin State Highlights [video]

Sunday, after all of the teams had competed, the awards were finally announced. The Aqua Jays, who had skied a very good show with huge numbers, swept the box scores and took 1st place overall. The Aquanuts had the highest scoring act of the tournament with their ballet line, the Aqua Jays had the highest scoring barefoot line, the Waterbugs had the highest scoring jump act and Badgerland had the highest scoring pyramid act.

Heather Addie won the Janie Dibble/Michelle Cook Outstanding Female Skier and Dave Rezin won the Jack Lukes Outstanding Male Skier awards.

The final results of the top 5…

1. Rock Aqua Jays – 2026
2. Mad-City Ski Team – 1732
3. Badgerland – 1652
4. Aquanuts – 1634
5. Webfooters – 1633

Thanks to Jim’s Photos for the great pictures.

On Thursday, two members of the ski team competed in the individual competitions. In the swivel competition, Sara Tubbs placed 3rd and Brea Imse placed 5th. Both will likely compete at Nationals in August.

Because the team will be out of town, the free weekly ski show at Law Park will not take place on Sunday, July 18. The team will return to the shores of Lake Monona for a show on Sunday, June 25, starting with the juniors’ team at 5:30pm and the full team at 6:00pm.

The tournament starts with individual competitions on Thursday where we had several people competing.  The weather on Thursday was not very friendly for water skiing.  It was cool and very windy, with the wind right out of the west which produced a very rare situation on Lake Wazecha… white caps.

Carly Cates and Paul O’Conner competed in the doubles competition and took 6th place.

Paul & Carly

Ann Tieman competed in the swivel competition and put on an excelent performance and took 2nd.  A video of her performance is below.

Mad-City’s Ann Tieman at the
2009 Wisconsin State Individual Swivel Competition [link]

Our jump team competed in the Team Jump competition where they performed flawlessly and ended up taking 2nd place.  A video of their performance is below.

Mad-City Ski Team’s Jump Team in the Team Jump Competition Video [link]

Paul O’Conner also competed in the Free Style Jump Competition and took 2nd place overall.

On Friday morning, the division 2 teams began skiing in the cool, cloudy, sometimes raining weather.  With a high only in the 60s, it was one of the coldest state tournaments in my memory.  On Saturday morning Mad-City finally took to the water to perform our show.  A short highlight video of our performance is below.

Mad-City 2009 Wisconsin State Tournament Highlight Video [link]

On Sunday afternoon the results were announced and Mad-City took home several awards.  The team was recognized for the Best Ballet Line, Best Jump Act, Best Dock & Equipment, Best Pickup Boat Drivers and Best Audio Presentation.  When the team results were announced, the Mad-City Ski Team took 1st place overall.  Here is a link to the full results (2009 Wisconsin State Tournament Results).

Mad-City Ski Team - 2009 Wisconsin State Champions

The tournament is the largest water ski in the world, featuring 1000+ competitors competing on 23 show ski teams.  Starting on Friday, you can view the tournament online at the WWSF website.  Details to view the tournament are here and you can click on this link to view the webcast.

On Thursday, some of skiers competed in the individual events portion of the tournament.  Paul O’Connor and Carly Cates took 5th in the Doubles Competition, Ann Tieman took 2nd in  Swivel, our jump team took 2nd inTeam Jump and Paul O’Connor to 2nd in the Freestyle Jump Competiton.

Mad-City will start skiing our show about 930/10am on Saturday morning.  Come watch us defend our 2008 State Title.  Directions to the ski site are here.  If you can’t make the trip, be sure to tune in to the webcast.

The Wisonsin State Tournament is always an exciting time. It’s a weekend that just about everyone on the Mad-City Ski Team looks forward to. Great place to ski, a great skiing environment, and fans that are excited to see the show we’ve put together.

The tournament starts on Thursday with Individuals.  Paul and Carli were the first Mad-City members up competing in the doubles competition.  They put together a good routine that left them in 4th place.

Next up, we had Ann competing in swivel.  She also put together a good routine and finish in 2nd place.

Next on the dock for Mad-City, we had another swiveler in the competition, Kristen.  She also put together a very strong routine, which ultimately ended up puting her in first place overall.

Mad-City’s final entrants in the individual competition was the jump team.  The put together a pretty clean jump act that was good enough for first place.  Here’s one of their jumps, the 5 man front flip.

Thursday night, a lot of the team members went out to blow off some steam, relax and have a good time.  Friday, it was back to business though.  Some members relaxed at various places around Rapids, others took in some ski shows.  We all got together at one member’s cabin for a last team meeting on Friday night.  It’s a chance to go through all the intros, dances and skits one last time, sometimes for the first time.  Besides the meeting, we’re treated to a very good picnic dinner.

Finally, Saturday morning arrives.  So far, none of the many pregnant members of the team had gone into labor so we had all hands on deck for our show.  As usual, it’s always a last minute scramble to get the last few details of show ready and set everything up for the show.

Since, a common saying is a picture is worth a 1000 words, and video provides 30 pictures a second to provide the illusion of motion, here’s an essay with approximately 10.5 million words in it.  Luckily you don’t have to read it all.  Sit back and enjoy this highlight clip of our state show.  It’s just a little shy of 6 minutes.

State Highlight Clip

With the show complete, the rest of Saturday is spent relaxing and having a good time.  Sunday morning arrives and the wait really begins.  But as the last team finishes their show, everyone starts to get anxious as we wait for the results.

Finally, the awards ceremony starts.  They kick things off with the individual results, handing out the.  Here are our team members accepting their awards.

Ann wins 2nd Place in Swivel

Kristen wins 1st Place in Swivel

Mad-City Jump Team wins 1st in Team Jump

Paul & Carli Win 4th Place in Doubles

After the awards for the individual competition are handed out, the act awards for the shows start.

Mad-City Wins Best Ballet

Mad-City Wins Best Jump Act

Then the traditional box scores begin…

Mad-City Wins Best Dock & Equipment

Mad-City Wins Best Tow Boat Driving

Finally, the overal results are announced…

Mad-City Wins 1st Place at Wisconsin State

Mad-City Celebrates 1st Place by Swimming in Lake Wazeecha

It was a very successful weekend for the Mad-City Ski Team… top 2 swivelers, 4th in doubles, 1st in team jump, best ballet, best jump act, best dock and equipment, best tow boat drivers and 1st place overall.  After celebrating our victory that night, the team set its focus on Nationals, which would take place just 3 weeks later.

We received this card in the mail from the Badgerland ski team congratulating us on our title. Thank you Badgerland, you guys are fantastic!

For the full resolution version, please click here

Also, please take a minute and visit Badgerland’s website and if you are in the area check out their show.

Links:
Badgerland Website

It wasn’t long after Mad-City won the 2007 Wisconsin State Show Ski Tournament that the focus was shifted from celebration to preparation for the 2007 National Show Ski Tournament, which is August 10-12 in Loves Park, IL.

But now the dust has settled and we can look back a bit at the State Tournament while at the same time spinning around the telescope and peering ahead to the national tournament.

To that end, we asked our show director, Chris Coupland his thoughts and feelings regarding the State Tournament and where Mad-City is and where we need to go to caputre our second straight National Championship.

1) What are your feelings about winning the 2007 state tournament?

Obviously it feels great to win again. I don’t think that will ever get old. I wish we could have skied cleaner though.

2) Comment on the work going into the show and how everything came together

It’s been a long Season. It took us longer to put the show together this off season due to the possibilities that we had to work with. I was very concerned about us pulling all of the pieces together until everybody stepped up the last two weeks and committed to putting in the extra effort. Hopefully we continue to do that and we achieve the holy grail and have “The Perfect” Show in 2 weeks!

3) Thoughts about competition during the tournament and upcoming for nationals?

It’s always tough to compete against Janesville. I’m sure they’re going to fix the problems they had and bring their A game to Nationals. In addition, you’ve got Wonder Lake and Little Crow that are ready to win again as well.

4) Sum up entire experience so far.

It’s been a crazy summer. Getting married on June 1st and then coming back to the thick of things. Fortunately for myself and the team that we have a lot of veteran skiers and support personnel that don’t need to be micro-managed. I just hope that we can stay focused and push strong through Rockford.

Competing in the Wisconsin State Show Ski Tournament, the Mad-City Ski Team edged out the Janesville Rock Aqua Jays to lay claim to their second straight Wisconsin State Championship!

The ski show, entitled “A Tale of 2 Ski Shows”, featured two stand-out announcers in longtime favorite Adam Schaller and new comer Matt Baumler facing off on stage to determine once and for all which is better, Mad-City Style or Traditional Show Ski Style.

During the course of their epic battle, Mad-City had some incredible performances.

Highlights include: Highest Scoring Ballet Line, Highest Scoring Jump Act, Best Tow Boat Crew, Best Sound Crew, Best Comedy, Best Overall Female Skier in Kristen Heilman, First ever four-tier One-Act Show and Mad-City’s first ever Triple Four-Tier Pyramid!!

Mad-City Dream Girls! – Highest Scoring Ballet Line

Mad-City Jump Team – Highest Scoring Jump Act

Mad-City Comedy Team – Best Comedy

Kristen Heilman – Best Overall Female Skier

Mad-City Sound Crew – Best Sound Crew

Mad-City Drive Team – Best Tow Boat Crew

The Wisconsin State Show Ski Tournament is the largest such tournament in the world and is a four-day long event that celebrates everything that is good in the show ski world, Competition, Camaraderie and of course some fantastic skiing.

There was 26 teams total from three different divisions that compete in this event, held on Lake Wazeecha near Wisconsin Rapids. While only one team competed in Division 3, the Aqua Devils from Three Lakes, WI, there were 25 teams combined competing in both Division 1 and Division 2.

Our neighbors to the south, the Janesville Rock Aqua Jays, came in second for the second year in a row with a steller show of their own. They layed claim to a couple impressive feats of their own as they claimed the highest scoring individual act with their barefoot pyramid act, best dock and equipment and best pick-up boat crew.

However, it was not enough as Mad-City scored a total of 2008 points to Janesville’s 1983.

Coming in third were the Webfooters from Freemont, WI.

In Division 2, the Beaver-Land Must-Skis notched their second consecutive championship as well knocking off the Browns Lake Aquaducks, 1704 to 1644.

With the win, the Beaver-Land Must-Skis, from Beaver Dam, will now join Division 1.

Links:

Complete Scores and Team Placements

Complete Photo Gallery from Jims Photos