As the weather brightened from the grey Melbourne skies so did the hopes of the Lottery backed British Team at the 2001 World Disabled Water Ski Championships in Australia. With the squad severely limited by injuries there was little margin for error as the 6 skier team took on the 14 strong Americans in the preliminary round of the trick discipline. With 5 of the team scores to count the British team were the underdogs from the outset but produced a string of performances to put the pressure back on the American team to finish the day 1400 points in the lead. Wraysbury based Vivienne Orchard led the team effort with a world record in jump, having already set a new slalom record yesterday in the leg category, being joined by Adelaine Fahey with a world trick record in the MP2 category, though the latter still has to be ratified by the judges. These world records were topped up by personal bests from Dunfermline's Mike Appleford in tricks in MP3 and both Adelaine Fahey (MP3) and Alan Pettigrew (MP2) in jump. "Knowing we were taking to the water having worked hard in the winter training coping in all weather conditions back in the UK was a real boost", said world record holder Vivienne Orchard. "That really bonded the team together and undoubtedly meant a big difference. The World Class Performance Lottery backing also allowed us to acclimatise properly and fine tune the winter's work in Australia in the week before the event and, even though we have been put under real pressure with the squad limited by injuries, the team spirit has remained really strong". With the jump event scores still to be finalised the British still look set to retain their lead into Saturday and Sunday's finals for which nearly all the British skiers have qualified. Team Scores after preliminary round tricks & slalom 1st Great Britain 8,800 points 2nd USA 7,493 points 3rd Australia 6,711 points ©1999-2004 Design Suite