Women in Sports at Stillwaters Waterski and Wakeboard Centre
The Stillwaters Team were proud to support the 2024 HER Outdoors Week, supported by Sport Ireland.
Stillwaters offered half-price introductory lessons in waterskiing, kneeboarding, and wakeboarding lessons to women and girl athletes.
HER Outdoors week
Great interest was generated through online campaigns, with several new skiers taking up the sport during the week, some as young as 12 and some from as far afield as Florida.
Stillwaters Waterski and Wakeboard facility
Stillwaters offers state-of-the-art equipment for new and experienced skiers, with a Malibu competition ski boat, Mastercraft X-Star wakeboard boat, learner bars, wetsuits, life jackets, skis and wakeboards. The coaches are all experienced international waterskiers.
Participants in HER Outdoors week
The weather was fine all week, with sunshine and gentle winds. Local skiers Kiva Skelton and Suzanne Purdue made the most of the good conditions during the week with slalom skiing and trick skiing sessions.
Kiva Skelton from Stillwaters WSC
Skiers also visited from other clubs, including Keanna McKibbin, who skis at the nearby Goldenfalls Waterski Club, and Lauren Hennessy, who skis at Wake & Ski in Summerhill Co. Meath.
Slalom skier Keanna McKibbin from nearby Goldenfalls Waterski Club
Lauren Hennessy visited Stillwaters and showed some serious style.
New Women Skiers and Wakeboarders
It was not just experienced skiers hitting the water, Perry Quigley and Emma Flynn learned to wakeboard at Stillwaters. Emma and Lilly Fortune visited from Straffan and both had successful lessons - Lilly learned to kneeboard and Emma was up on skis for the first time. Colleen Hanley from Florida was also trying waterskiing for the first time and showed great potential - getting up first attempt and skiing with perfect technique.
New wakeboarders Perry Quigley and Emma Flynn, both from Naas.
First-timer Lilly Fortune from Straffan tries kneeboarding at Stillwaters.
Emma Fortune from Straffan tries waterskiing for the first time.
Colleen Hanley from Florida up first try!
New skiers Róisín O'Shea and Ciara Mulrooney also participated, getting lessons from coach Andrew Skelton.
First-time visitors to Stillwaters - Róisín O'Shea and Ciara Mulrooney.
A great success
It was great to see so many new women and girls hitting the water and making great progress in waterskiing and wakeboarding this year. Stillwaters hope to run more such events in 2025 to increase participation. Interest in the sport continues to grow, indeed a training week at Stillwaters later in the month had 7 girls participating. Support from Sport Ireland is having a significant impact in attracting new skiers to the sport as well as helping to grow the potential of competition skiers.
Shout outs
#HEROutdoorsWeek
#EmbraceYourSpace
#FindYourOutdoors
#WomenInWaterskiing
#IrWWF