Quite simply, it's waterskiing without the skis, and it's the oldest of the so-called extreme sports.
It began in 1947, when waterskiing itself was quite young. Waterski pioneer Chuck Sligh had been trying smaller and smaller skis, and he came to the conclusion that it would be possible to ski, without using skis, behind a boat that was going fast enough.
A teenager, A. G. Hancock, proved Sligh's theory, but the glory went to Dick Pope Jr., who was photographed and filmed performing the feat at Cypress Gardens.
A barefoot competition was held at Cypress Gardens in 1950, but most of the participants literally dropped out. Emilio Zamudio won the prize for the longest ride, which was the only competition involved.
Although the new sport was often demonstrated in American water ski shows during the 1950s and 1960s, its most important early developments occurred in Australia, where barefoot jumping was invented about 1967.
At the first international barefoot competition, at Cypress Gardens in 1973, members of the Australian team demonstrated jumping to U. S. skiers. One of them, John Hacker, returned to the United States in 1977 to teach the technique.
In 1978, the American Barefoot Club was founded as an affiliate of the American Water Ski Association. The first U. S. Barefoot Nationals were held that year, and Australia hosted the first world championships, with competition in jumping, tricks, and wake slalom. There were 54 competitors, representing 10 countries.
The International Water Ski Federation now conducts the world championships.
The barefoot competitive events are similar to those of traditional water skiing, but there are some differences. Most notably, the boat has to travel much faster, up to 40 miles per hour, about twice as fast as in traditional water skiing.
There are no buoys in the barefoot slalom. The skier gets two passes of 15 seconds each and attempts to cross from the outside of the first wake to the outside of the second wake as many times as possible. A full crossing is worth 1 point if done on one foot, .5 point if done on two feet, and partial crossings are worth fractions of a point.
In tricks, a skier is also given two 15-second passes, performing tricks such as flips and multiple one-foot turns, which are scored by judges.
Because of the boat speed, the barefoot jump ramp is only 18 inches high, compared to 5-6 feet high in traditional water skiing. Jumpers are given three tries, with the longest jump winning.
Jumping has often stirred controversy because of its danger. John Gillette, president of the American Barefoot Club during the 1980s, tried to have the event removed from sanctioned competition. A comprehensive guide to barefoot water skiing, published in 1989, went into great detail about slalom and tricks, but never even mentioned jumping.
One of the first American jumpers, William Farrell, used a technique called bum jumping, in which the skier slides up and over the ramp on his buttocks. The method produced long but erratic jumps. Bum jumping was banned after the 1988 world championships for the sensible reason that, if a skier is not on his bare feet, it can hardly be considered barefoot water skiing.
Mike Seipel of the United States accidentally invented the "inverted" technique, in which the jumper flies through the air headfirst. He was practicing for the 1990 national championship when his feet slipped on the ramp and went out behind him. He thought at first that he was going to be killed, but he then realized it had resulted in a very long jump, so he began practicing the technique.
Seipel set a world record at the nationals and extended it at the 1990 world championships, spurring other skiers to experiment with the new technique. Then Casey Scalise, who trained with Seipel, extended the record from 76.4 feet to 86.3 feet, and virtually every barefoot jumper in the world began learning the inverted jump.
There has been some talk about banning inverted jumping as being too dangerous but, as with the "Fosbury Flop" in high jumping, it seems to have become too well established, in a relatively short time, to be banned.
The newest type of barefoot competition is the Figure 8, which is a test of endurance. In a Figure 8 tournament, pairs of competitors are towed behind the same boat, each maintaining position on the same side of the wake while the boat follows a figure 8 course, until one of them drops out through fatigue or falling.
The winner then moves on to the next round of the tournament, which continues until only the champion remains standing. Two of the major tournaments are FootFest, at Orlando, Florida, and Footstock, at Crandon, Wisconsin, where Figure 8 competition was invented.
