While half the PWC racing world is laser-focused on the HOT, HOT, HOT shores of Lake Havasu — where the heat has been enough to send Tuesday’s IJSBA World Finals registration indoors and leave organizers reconsidering their plans day by day — there is a flip side to the Arizona swelter.
Half a world away in Shanghai, China, the skies were cloudy, the days drizzly and temperatures barely topped 70 degrees.
The racing, however, was blistering.
The 2026 UIM-ABP Aquabike World Championship finally got underway in Shanghai over the weekend, with many of the racers having already been put through their paces earlier this year in the European Continental Championship.
Gyorgy Kasza, Quinten Bossche, Jessica Chavanne and Rashid Al Mulla left the opening Grand Prix atop their respective classes and already gave the international field plenty to chase when the championship heads to Olbia, Italy, for its second — and final — round.
The 2026 UIM-ABP Aquabike World Championship opened its season in Shanghai over the weekend, with Gyorgy Kasza, Quinten Bossche, Jessica Chavanne and Rashid Al Mulla leaving the opening Grand Prix atop their respective classes and already giving the international field plenty to chase when the championship resumes in Olbia, Italy.
In Runabout GP1, Kasza made it a clean sweep of the weekend, winning all three motos. In the final, the Hungarian grabbed the holeshot ahead of Francois Medori and Samuel Johansson and then simply kept stretching the gap.
By Lap 2, Kasza had built a 5.053-second advantage over Medori. By Lap 4 it was 14.821 seconds.
By the checkered flag?
32.474 seconds.
Kasza’s three wins gave him the Grand Prix victory, while defending world champion Medori finished second overall with 64 points. Johansson took the final podium spot with 58, just two ahead of Jeremy Perez.
Meanwhile, in Ski GP1 … well, Bossche did what Bossche does. He won.
Quinten Bossche swept all 75 available points in Shanghai, putting an exclamation point on the weekend with a 48.575-second victory in Moto 3.
Five laps into the final race, Bossche was already 29.518 seconds out front. Jeremy Poret ultimately took second in the moto and second overall, with Valentin Dardillat completing the Grand Prix podium.
Jessica Chavanne put together an impressive weekend of her own in Ski Ladies GP1, winning two motos and taking the Grand Prix overall with 72 points.
Chavanne led the final moto from the start, choosing the outside split and emerging ahead of Estelle Poret and Benedicte Drange. She quickly opened a 9.607-second advantage and eventually crossed the finish line 7.247 seconds ahead.
Poret finished the Grand Prix second overall with 62 points, while Jasmiin Ypraus took third in her return to China — where she had finished second the last time Aquabike raced there in 2019.
And the Freestyle field provided another reminder that established champions aren’t the only racers worth watching this season.
Rashid Al Mulla claimed both motos and the Shanghai Grand Prix, scoring 223 points from the judges in the finale and adding another Chinese Grand Prix title to the one he won when Aquabike last visited the country in 2019.
But Aquabike rookie Demi Morgan made quite an entrance.
Morgan scored 187 points in the final and finished second overall in her first Aquabike appearance, ahead of defending world champion Roberto Mariani, who completed the Shanghai podium.
For the Aquabike competitors, attention now turns toward Olbia, Italy, for the next round of the World Championship.
Meanwhile, on this side of the planet, many of the best — and plenty of the brave who came to see if they can beat the best — are pouring into Lake Havasu City for one of the biggest weeks on the PWC racing calendar.
And waiting a little farther down that calendar is another place where those racing worlds can collide.
As a reminder, the WGP#1 Waterjet World Cup will come later than normal this season.
WGP#1 announced back in June that the event, originally scheduled for Dec. 16-20, 2026, had been rescheduled for Jan. 13-17, 2027, at Jomtien Beach in Pattaya, Thailand.
Organizers said the change followed the Royal Thai Government’s announcement that the Royal Cremation Ceremony of Queen Sirikit The Queen Mother would take place Dec. 14-19. They also cited Pattaya’s hosting of Tomorrowland Dec. 11-13, creating heavy demand for accommodations, and other activities already scheduled at the venue earlier in December.
The venue itself remains unchanged.
And when January finally arrives, WGP#1 will again provide something increasingly rare in a sport divided among sanctioning bodies, championships and continents:
A proving ground — and battlefield — where many of the elite from those different racing worlds finally meet on the same water.
