The 2007 Water Ski World Championship is over. The champions were declared and the overall title has been awarded. But just like in any other tournament, bad things do happen to one or few skiers when they compete because some of them experienced fall, have broken skis and even protests.

And I just read an interesting behind the scene happenings from Schnitzskis website about Nick Parsons mishap when he competed in Open Men Slalom in Austria.  Parsons had a fall and at the same time broke his ski. The problem is that Nick’s back-up ski is not in the place of event as he left it in his hotel room.

However, Nick has some good luck left because fellow skier, Thomas Degasperi of Italy who won the first place in Men Slalom had extra skis with him and offered it to Nick. Thomas is using the same brand of ski as with Nick but different model. Then, Nick was further helped by skiers Steve Cockram of New Zealand and Drew Ross of Canada to screw his ski.

Whew! The spirit of sportsmanship is really in the air during that moment because those who really gave significant help to Nick belong to other teams. Nick did not make it to the top three but I think, he would not even make it to the top 14 without the help of those guys.  Plus of course, the protest made by Dave of Goode Ski in favor of Nick’s score is likewise helpful. The protest gave Nick his buddy ample time to fix the mishap and get on the game on time.

The important lesson of this happening is that we should always bring back-up ski whenever we compete. Sure we can use alternative ski, but it is not advantageous to use another ski other than what we really own because ski is like a shoe, it is hard to walk or jump and we can not give our best performance when we are not using our own shoe.