Last week, The Watercraft Journal began a recap of early-season race results with a look at Pacific Northwest Watercross, East Coast Watercross and Great Lakes Watercross results from the first weeks of the 2024 race season.
As promised, we will continue with our run-through of US race action, but first, with news from the Aquabike World Championship series flooding social media over the past 2 days, we are taking a quick detour and heading to Olbia in the region of Sardinia to get the results of the Regione Sardegna Grand Prix of Italy
The opening round of the 2024 UIM-ABP Aquabike World Championship was held at Quy Nhon in the province of Bình Đinh in central Vietnam on March 22-24, setting up many key matches for the coming season, and in Round 2, announced by the one-and-only Dawn Dawson, the weekend of high-octane racing featured many names familiar throughout the race community, regardless of nationality, as well as many regional favorites.
More than 166 riders from 30 countries were cited as pre-registered across the various classes, and additional riders were added to the lineups through the start of racing.
As reported on the Aquabike website, defending World Champion Jessica Chavanne, Belgian Quinten Bossche, Estonian Mattias Siimann and Team Abu Dhabi’s Rashid Al-Mulla secured Grand Prix victories in the Ski Ladies GP1, Ski Division GP1, Runabout GP1 and Freestyle categories in difficult conditions at the Regione Sardegna Grand Prix of Italy in Olbia, while Belgian Yoni Hamelin, Estonian racers Mattias Reinass and Karl Keskula, French girl Cyrielle Bramm and Mattias Siimann of Estonia earned World Championship and Grand Prix victories in their respective Ski GP3, Ski GP4, Runabout GP4, Runabout GP4 Ladies and Runabout GP2 categories in blustery conditions at the Regione Sardegna Grand Prix of Italy on Sunday afternoon. Reinass also claimed the Ski GP2 title.
Complete results and Aquabike recaps of the races are available here and here.
