Michaela Cooper leads sisters' success on skis

Courtesy of Ashley Cooper

Michaela Cooper rounds a slalom buoy at the Junior U.S. Open Water Ski Championships in Princeton, Texas.

Courtesy of Lori Cooper

The Cooper sisters (from left): Michaela, Randolph and Caroline, placed first, third and fourth, respectively in their age groups at the Junior U.S. Open Water Ski Championships.

Michaela Cooper, 21-year-old daughter of Ashley and Lori Cooper of Moneta, took first place at the Junior U.S. Open Water Ski Championships, an international water-ski competition held earlier this summer in Princeton, Texas. The event featured nearly 50 of the world's top junior skiers competing in two age divisions for titles in slalom, trick skiing and jumping.

Michaela won the gold medal in Women's Slalom, ages 17-21. The event requires competitors to repeatedly weave through a six-buoy slalom course behind a boat traveling precisely 34 mph on a towline that gets shortened several feet after each successful run, or pass, through the course.

Her winning score of four at 35 off means she made it around the first four buoys on a pass with the line shortened from 75 to 40 feet in length. Guiding her high-tech slalom ski around the buoys, which are placed 37 ½ feet out from the center of the course, becomes substantially more difficult each time the tow line is shortened.

Also qualifying for the competition were Cooper sisters Randolph, 18, and Caroline, 15. They each made the final rounds in their age divisions, with Caroline winning a bronze in the Girls Slalom (ages 16 and under) and Randolph placing fourth in Women's Slalom.

"This was the first year three of our girls qualified for the Junior U.S. Open," said Ashley Cooper, who spends countless hours in the boat coaching his daughters in preparation for tournament-level competition.

Training on the slalom course near the Coopers' home on Smith Mountain Lake typically begins in March and continues through much of November. The girls also attend occasional training sessions in Florida during the winter months.

"When we started showing up at tournaments, people would say, 'You're from where?' -- thinking Virginia has too seasonal a climate to breed truly competitive skiers. We're very proud of the girls for attaining internationally competitive status despite not being able to ski year-round," he said.

The Cooper family's 2010 tournament ski season started off with Caroline skiing in the prestigious Junior Masters Water Ski & Wakeboard Tournament at Callaway Gardens in Pine Mountain, Ga., on Memorial Day weekend. Competing against top slalom skiers from around the world, Caroline tied for third in the preliminary round with two buoys at 35 off. In her runoff with Camille Poulain of France, she fell after two at 32 off. Poulain went on to win the gold with two at 35, the same score both competitors had achieved in the preliminary heat.

Michaela, a rising senior at Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla., is a three-time All-American National Collegiate Water Ski champion. Last fall, she competed in the Under 21 World Water Ski Championships, an invitation-only event in Chapala, Mexico.

Randolph and Caroline attend Christian Heritage Academy in Rocky Mount. The girls are involved with the Smith Mountain Lake Water Ski Club and spend much of the summer coaching at Cobles Ski School in Lillington, N.C., or practicing on their home course at SML.