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World champion water skier Sarah Teelow has died following a fall during a high-speed race on Australia's Hawkesbury River near Sydney.

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Australian water skier Sarah Teelow has died during a high-speed race on Hawkesbury River near Sydney.

Teelow suffered a heavy fall and was air-lifted to Sydney's Royal North Shore Hospital in a critical condition with spinal and head injuries on Sunday, but was later taken off life support on Monday.

Police say the 21-year-old came off her skis soon after the start of the high-speed 121-kilometre Bridge-to-Bridge race.

The Mayor of her hometown of Wellington, Rod Buhr, paid tribute to Teelow.

SOUNDBITE: (English) Rod Buhr, Mayor of Wellington, Teelow's Hometown:
"She was an absolutely delightful young person, you know in the prime of her life and she was pursuing a sport that she loved and you know her whole family actually, there's a history of them being involved in the skiing industry and she was doing really, really well at it and it's just a huge loss."

Teelow was the daughter of twice world water ski champion Tania Teelow and had recently returned from the World Water Ski Racing Championships in Tenerife where she won the Formula 2 category.

Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show that Teelow was the seventh water skier to die in an accident in Australia in the past five years.