Qatar Marine Sports Federation

• Qatar Grand Prix Titles for Lemoine, Poret, Balzer and Florjancic
• Alsharshani finished fifth after amazing competition with Al Housani
• Al Housani finished the race in 9th place

Saturday, 3 March, DOHA (Qatar): French duo Cyrille Lemoine and Jeremy Poret, Italy’s Stefania Balzer and Slovenia’s Rok Florjancic took overall category honours in the Qatar Grand Prix, Lemoine finishing third in today’s heat in Runabout F1, Poret completing the Doha win-double  in Ski, with Stefania Balzer taking her second career heat win.

In Freestyle the accolades belonged to Rok Florjancic who produced a stunning performance to also complete the win-double in Doha, to take a second Grand Prix title in as many events, with his brother Nac in second place and Frenchman Romain Stampers third overall.

After yesterday’s bitter disappointment, heat 2 in Runabout F1 belonged to Franky Zapata; the Frenchman took the lead on lap 2 and held off a fierce race long challenge from countryman Francois Medori, Zapata eventually running out the winner by four seconds.

Medori’s second place put him into second place overall and a controlled ride and third place was enough to give the 2009 World Champion, Cyrille Lemoine, the Grand Prix title and the lead in the World Championship standings.

Italy’s Lorenzo Benaglia completed the overall podium line-up, after finishing in fourth place ahead of the top placed Qatari rider, Waled Al Sharshani and France’s Didier Chabert.

In Ski F1, France’s defending World Champion, Jeremy Poret, produced another command performance to take his second heat win of the weekend and the Qatar Grand Prix title for the second year in a row.

In a repeat of yesterday’s heat, Poret found himself trailing in third after the start, but passed the early leader Ludo Caumont to take the lead on lap two. Poret’s only real challenge coming from countryman Jean-Baptiste Botti who kept the pressure on the Champion for 10 of the 13 laps, closing the gap to two seconds, but was unable to force the leader into a mistake, with Poret claiming the win and the title.

Third place for Ludo Caumont, his second top three finish in two days, put the Frenchman into second place overall, whilst second place for Botti and his fifth place yesterday moved him into third in the Grand Prix standings.

Behind the leading trio Emanuele Balzer and Nachete Armilas enjoyed a race long fight for fourth spot, the Spanish rider Armillas stealing through on lap 9, with Italian Alberto Monti completing the top six in today’s heat.

The outcome of the Ski Ladies Qatar Grand Prix was all but settled on the opening lap, with favourite and defending World Champion Julie Bulteau late out onto the water for the start of the race and retiring almost immediately with a broken engine.

Italy's Stefania Balzer took full advantage of Bulteau's misfortune, leading from the start and dominating the race to run out an easy winner by nearly nine seconds, to take a second career Grand Prix title.

Slovenia’s Pija Sumer put in a second solid performance, her third place on Friday and second place in heat 2 giving her the runners-up slot, with Russia’s Irina Babenko finishing third ahead of a distant Marta Sorrentino and Paola Boggi.

There was some consolation for Champion Bulteau, her win yesterday giving her third place in the Grand Prix standings.

World Championship Runabout F1

Pos      Bike No        Rider                                   Nat                H1  H2             Total

1          9            LEMOINE Cyrille                     FRA               25   16                41

2          4            MEDORI Francois                    FRA                13   20                33

3          44          BENAGLIA Lorenzo                ITA                 20   13                33

4          7            ZAPATA Franky                       FRA                 0     25                25

5          10          AL SHARSHANI Waled          QAT                9     11                20

6          77          AL HOSNI Khamis                   QAT              10     7                 17

8          45          MOHSN Mohammed               UAE                7      9                 16

7          12          AL ABDULRAZZAQ Yousef KUW             16     0                 16

9          99          JIMENEZ Jordi Tomas            SPA                  8    6                 14

10        16          CAUMONT Ludovic                UAE               11    0                 11

12        22          CHABERT Didier                     FRA                 0    10               10

11        37          AL MANNAI Rashid                QAT                 6     4                 10

13        11          CANTAMESSA Emmanuel     ITA                   0     8                   8

14        88          LINDNER Pablo                       SPA                 4     3                   7

15        92          PRIETO GONZALEZ Franc    SPA                 1     5                   6

16        98          ABUFAISAL Thamer               QAT                 5     0                   5

17        84          JOHANSSON Johan                 SWE               2      2                  4

18        23          DOUKI Jean-Marc                   FRA                 3     0                   3

19        41          CHASSIER David                     FRA                 0     1                   1

World Championship Freestyle

Pos Bike No            Rider                         Nat     H1  H2                         Total

1     3             FLORJANCIC Rok             SLO   25   25                           50

2     7             FLORJANCIC Nac             SLO   20   20                           40

3     33          STAMPERS Romain           FRA   16   16                           32

4     10          KURAMSHIN Alexander   RUS   13   13                           26

5     70          MARIANI Roberto              ITA    10   11                           21

6     27          AL QUBAISI Khalid           UAE  11     0                            11

World Championship Ski Division F1

Pos Bike No        Rider                       Nat    H1    H2                                Total

1     72          PORET Jeremy              FRA  25    25                                   50

2     16          CAUMONT Ludo          UAE  20    16                                   36

3     6             BOTTI Jean-Baptiste    FRA  11    20                                    31

4     22          BALZER Emanuele       ITA    16   11                                    27

5     36          ARMILLAS Nachete     ESP   13   13                                    26

6     30          MONTI Alberto             ITA    10   10                                    20

7     23          BOHUSLAV Josef        SK     7     9                                      16

8     4             IVANCIC Slaven           CRO  8     8                                      16

9     19          SZABO Gabor                HUN 9     7                                      16

10   12          AL QUBAISI Hamdan  UAE  5      6                                       11

11   26          ERUKHIMOV Eugeny  RUS  6     5                                      11

12   39          AL MANSOORI Fahad UAE  0     0                                        0

13   25          LOPES Steven                BEL   0   0                                        0

14   47          BIN-THANI Omar         UAE  0    0                                        0

World Championship Ski Ladies F1

Pos Bike No          Rider                  Nat    H1  H2                              Total

1     81          BALZER Stefania       ITA  20     25                               45

2     25          SUMER Pija                 SLO 16   20                               36

3     33          BULTEAU Julie          FRA 25      0                               25

4     24          SORRENTINO Marta ITA  11     13                               24

5     11          BOGGI Paola               ITA  13    11                               24

6     56          BABENKO Irina         RUS 0      16                               16