CSIS - Gold haul continues for Nicole

As the season's curtain raiser things could not have gone better for water skier, Nicole Arthur, who won the women's slalom event at this month's World Under-21 Championships in Santiago, Chile.

In doing so the Slamannan 20 year old is now the first water skier to have secured World titles at every age group category from junior to senior.

CSIS - Nicole Arthur 3 I was 16 when I first competed in this event and I got bronze then, said a lean and tanned Nicole at the Central Scotland Institute of Sport today. So I'm really pleased to get my first gold. Now it adds my fourth world title to last year's Open title and the two junior gold medals I've won.

At the Santiago venue, which she describes as the back yard of a guy who's the biggest importer of chicken in South America... a big complex with lakes and the Andes in the background, Nicole admitted to feeling some pressure at being the new kid at the top of world competition.

Because I'd won the Worlds everybody was expecting me to win again. The first round I didn't ski that well, probably because of that reason - I was nervous. The second round I told myself to just get on with it.

Having qualified second, she set out as the penultimate skier in the final, needing to beat Canadian Witney McClintock's three buoys on the 11.25 metre rope. Nicole set a new mark in getting around the fourth buoy. The last skier, Australian Karina Nowlan, failed to round the third buoy, sealing the top spot for Nicole.

With every world title now accomplished with her teen years barely behind her, Nicole still has one final year in the under 21 category. But as holder of the world's senior title, the next 12 months will be her busiest in the sport.

Because I won the Open Worlds I've got invitations to all the pro events and all the World Cup stops, she said.

This year there'll be a lot of travelling and I'll go to America and do the whole States thing. There are about 12 pro tour stops, three world cup stops, three title events. My first event is the US Masters, on the 22 May in Georgia, which is a very big one.

With such a gap before her next major competition, Nicole might be excused for having some well earned down time, but the words 'time off' are not a part her vocabulary.

Much as I want to rest, the key for the next three weeks is to get back into my strength work here at the Central Institute. It's going to be a heavy year.

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