Last updated: 28 Oct 2026 | 23 Views |
In the middle of the Arizona desert, a deep blue lake lies pressed against walls of brick-red rock. In October the sun turns the water into a sheet of hammered light, and the sound of jet ski engines bounces off the cliffs and comes back doubled. This is Lake Havasu City, home to the SBT IJSBA World Finals, and for four days in October 2026, from the 8th to the 11th, more than 250 riders gathered here for the 45th edition of the event. Somewhere along the shoreline, a red, white and blue flag was snapping in the wind.
Thailand sent 19 riders and more than 110 officials and support staff across the Pacific. The ambition was specific: win more than a dozen world titles. When the last race ended on October 11, the Thai team was carrying twelve trophies back to the dock.
Jet ski racing is scored in motos, short heats whose points are added up, so a single bad run can haunt a whole class. That is why consistency matters as much as speed, and why this team’s results deserve a closer look. The story starts on day one. Wittawin Wimutikorn was racing in the United States for the first time in his life, and he finished the Novice Runabout Stock class with a perfect 120 points. A perfect score is not a lucky score. It means every lap, in every moto, ended in the right place. Beside him, Primrose Khunsa, known as Poypoy, won Novice Runabout 1100 Stock as the only woman in the class. She is the daughter of Atthaphon “Oy” Khunsa, a legendary name in Thai jet ski racing, and the next day she added a second gold, scoring a perfect 180 in Amateur Runabout Rec Lite. A famous surname might open a gate. It cannot ride the moto for you.
By October 8 the count had reached seven. Kasidit Teeraprateep, a former WGP champion from 2024, won every moto in Pro-Am Runabout Limited, a clean sweep. Tanawin Molee told a different kind of story in Pro-Am Ski Stock. He lost the first moto to Sugar Sato, then won the next two to take the title. He chose to adjust rather than sink into the mistake.
That same day, the women’s Amateur Runabout 1100 Stock class went down to the final moto. Poypoy and her compatriot Suphakchaya Ngamsommit, nicknamed Hongyok, were tied at 113 points. Poypoy won the last moto and finished with 166. Two Thai riders pushed each other to the limit on foreign water, and that is often how a national team gets stronger: not by avoiding rivalry, but by sharing it.
On October 9, Somkeat Lalert of G-Force Powersports Pattaya took the Amateur Runabout Endurance class by winning every moto. Endurance racing is the marathon of the sport, a test of strength, stamina and pacing, and it was his first title on American soil. It also made him the eighth Thai world champion of the event.
Then came October 10, and the story most worth telling. Hongyok, wearing number 150, lined up in Junior 13-15 Runabout 1100 Stock, a class where the other riders were boys. She finished with 173 points and a world title, the ninth for Thailand. Her teammate Nattakit Suriyaatiwath, known as Pai, took bronze in the same class. Nobody lowered the standard for her. The buoys were in the same places, and she had to hold the same line through every corner as everyone else.
The final day belonged to Kasidit. In Pro-Am Runabout 1100 Open he scored 168 points, just two ahead of his countryman Pittipong Kiatkamolkul, known as Bank. In RO Runabout GP he beat Kenta Oku of Japan in the battle round after Oku’s boat failed mid-race. A rival’s breakdown is nothing to celebrate, but it shows how much of this sport is about staying in the race until the end. A former champion had shown he was more than a name from 2024.
The twelfth title went to the youngest of the group. Nachaphat Srisuan, nicknamed Spain, competed in the Junior Runabout 8-13 Lap Challenge, a slalom format. He posted the best time in both motos, 1:24.75 and then 1:24.25, and took his first world title. The improvement between runs was half a second. Spectators would hardly notice it, but it is the product of small corrections made turn by turn.
Behind all of it stood the Thai Jet Sports Boating Association, the Sports Authority of Thailand, the National Sports Development Fund and other supporters. The sport looks like play from the shoreline. In reality it is an engine that must be tuned, a body that must be trained, and a team that must be ready when the flag drops. Nineteen riders, twelve titles: that ratio does not come from talent alone.
What does a story like this teach? Not that Thailand is lucky, or that jet skiing is secretly easy. It teaches that excellence hides in small things: a perfect 120 or 180 earned lap by lap, a comeback after a lost first moto that requires adjustment rather than panic, a teenager who keeps her line while being the only girl in the class, a half-second shaved off a slalom run. None of them is glamorous, and none of them makes a headline on its own. Every one of those small things connects to the same ideas that sit behind a trophy: effort, patience, discipline, resilience, and the courage to keep improving after failure.
A trophy placed on a shelf is just an object. But for a rider who has crossed that water, who has lost a first moto and found a way to win the next two, it is proof that hours of practice did not disappear. When the Thai flag rose over the desert again, the message was simple. Some world champions grow up on water the rest of us never see, in a country that has quietly been building them for years. They deserve to be seen. And they deserve something solid to hold when the engine finally goes quiet.
