Gyorgy Kasza has opened his 2026 UIM-ABP Aquabike World Championship campaign with maximum points in Runabout GP1, leading the standings for the first time after the season opener in Shanghai.
The Hungarian won all three motos at the Grand Prix of Shanghai-China on 2–3 October, held on the Changtan waters off Wusongkou in the city's Baoshan district. It was the championship's first race in Baoshan and its first in China since Qingdao in 2019 the same Baoshan district where Jonas Andersson claimed his only Grand Prix win of last season.
Kasza's 75-point haul puts him 11 points clear of reigning champion Francois Medori, who has never successfully defended a title despite winning three Runabout crowns. Kasza was third overall in 2025.
The Belgian Quinten Bossche matched Kasza's perfect score in Ski GP1, winning each moto by margins of 48 to 58 seconds. Bossche took the world title in 2017 and 2024 but reliability issues cost him the 2025 championship to Denmark's Oliver Koch Hansen.
In Ski Ladies GP1, Jessica Chavanne defeated reigning champion Estelle Poret to take the Grand Prix. Chavanne, champion in 2020 and 2023, won two of three motos after Poret fell in the final race and finished sixth.
American rookie Demi Morgan finished second in Freestyle on her Aquabike debut, behind two-time moto winner Rashid Al Mulla. Morgan won the Amateur Freestyle world title at the 2023 IJSBA World Finals, which the IJSBA said made her the first woman to win one of its freestyle world titles.
The condensed 2026 calendar continues in less than a fortnight with the Regione Sardegna Grand Prix of Italy in Olbia on 16–18 October, followed by Doha on 19–21 November and a Middle East round scheduled for 1–5 December.
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