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Ireland's 26 year-old Eamonn Prunty of Summerhill in Meath captured the headlines and no less than four medals at the Disabled World Waterski Championships in West Chester, Ohio, this past weekend.

The Disabled World Waterski Championships attracted 38 of the World's top athletes from Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Great Britain, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Republic of South Africa, Sweden, USA – and Ireland.

These World Championships included Slalom, Tricks and Jump. The most coveted award is for the Overall title, the triathlon of Waterskiing. This involves competing in all three events and outscoring all others in the combined calculations.

Eamonn Prunty

Success for Eamonn stateside. Photo: Des Burke Kennedy

In both Slalom and Tricks, Eamonn Prunty took the Bronze Medal. Finally, in Jump he took 5th place. When all the sores were totaled, his 2670 Overall points were 49 ahead of his nearest rival, Darryl Hoyle of Australia, who was hotly tipped to take the World Overall title this year. Although Hoyle broke the World Jump record, his combined scores still could not beat Eamonn Prunty. Joe Rae of USA took the Overall Bronze medal. This was the second time that Prunty has succeeded in taking the World Overall Gold Medal, a feat never equaled.

Des Burke-Kennedy, President of the Irish Waterski & Wakeboard Federation stated " This was a very well deserved victory for the enormous talents of Ireland's Eamonn Prunty and taking the gold medal at the World Championships for the second time is almost impossible – but Eamonn is no stranger to doing the impossible"

World Champion Eamonn Prunty trains at the family owned Irish Aqua Sports Centre in Summerhill, Meath,a short distance west of Blanchardstown. The man-made lake is widely regarded as one of the most perfect Waterski and Wakeboard training Centres in Europe. Having a two-time World Gold Medalist on site will certainly focus the international spotlight on this impressive facility. The Website is at : http://www.wakeboardingwaterskiing.com

Published in Waterskiing
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William M Nixon has been writing about sailing in Ireland and internationally for many years, with his work appearing in leading sailing publications on both sides of the Atlantic. He has been a regular sailing columnist for four decades with national newspapers in Dublin, and has had several sailing books published in Ireland, the UK, and the US. An active sailor, he has owned a number of boats ranging from a Mirror dinghy to a Contessa 35 cruiser-racer, and has been directly involved in building and campaigning two offshore racers. His cruising experience ranges from Iceland to Spain as well as the Caribbean and the Mediterranean, and he has raced three times in both the Fastnet and Round Ireland Races, in addition to sailing on two round Ireland records. A member for ten years of the Council of the Irish Yachting Association (now the Irish Sailing Association), he has been writing for, and at times editing, Ireland's national sailing magazine since its earliest version more than forty years ago