Cableski Athletes of the Year 2004

Meier-Gromyko and Bauer

Julia Meier-Gromyko from Minsk in Belarus is the IWSF Female Cableski
Athlete of the Year.

Julia, born in 1971, started already in the age of 9 with Water skiing. At
first she skied behind the boat, where she won several European Championship
titles in the Dauphin and Juniors Categories.

In 1989 she participated on her first Cableski Competition as member of the
Soviet Team at the Region EAME Cableski Championships in Kosice. And from
here it gets difficult... Because Julia has won Medals and Titles since then
at all EAME Cableski Championships as well as at all Cableski World
Championships. To list all these would be impossible, nobody since the
beginning of Cableski has dominated this sport, especially Jump, Trick and
Overall for such a long time. She is the current World Record Holder in
Trick and Jump, from which she improved the last one this year to a distance
of 47.6 m.

Today Julia lives in Germany, together with her husband Marc-Andre Meier, a
very successful Slalom skier himself, and their two kids. Besides being
still active, she works as coach for the German Waterski Federation and she
is the Skiers Representative for both, the World Cableski Council and the
EAME Cableski Council.

For her long time career and representation of the sport, Julia
Meier-Gromyko was elected as the IWSF Female Cableski Athlete of the Year.







Thomas Bauer from Kiefersfelden in Germany is the IWSF Male Cableski Athlete
of the Year.

Thomas, born 1971, started skiing with 11 years and already in the next year
he took part at the National Junior and Dauphin Championships. He won his
first title in this Championships another 2 years later, in 1985.

He was the first time part of the National Team at the EAME Cableski
Championships in 1989 in Kosice / SVK. Meanwhile he has won 4 titles at the
EAME Cableski Championships, the first one in Overall (1995), his first
individual title in the Jump event in 2000.

In 2002 Thomas won his most prestigious title up to now, the Men Jump Event
at the Cableski Worlds in Alfsee, Germany.

Thomas has decided some years ago to concentrate himself completely on
jumping. He has practiced together with the german winter ski jump team to
improve his style and has tested their equipment to use it on the water as
well. He has developed a new jump suit and introduced the usage of Spectra
ropes on the Cable. All this has helped him to be the first one to jump over
60 m on a Cableski Competition, with an official World Record of 60.1 m
jumped in Langenfeld this year.

For this record and his outstanding efforts to move forward jumping at the
Cable, Thomas Bauer was elected as the IWSF Male Cableski Athlete of the
Year.