Water ski-ing is growing in popularity in the Soviet Union and there was great interest when the national championships were held recently on the Volga River, near Dubna.

The star of the championships was Grigory Gusev, a Soviet Master of Sport who work as a laboratory assistant at the Kurchatov Institute of Nuclear Physics. He won gold medals in all the events he entered, a record for the championships.

Most successful of the girl skiers was Tatyana Rozhkova from Moscow, who became the Soviet Woman Champion.

The event included slalom, jumping and figure ski-ing.