Water-Ski History (Continued)

1922: Ralph Samuelson, generally regarded as the father of water skiing, straps two 8' X 9" pine boards to his feet and takes off behind a motor boat on Lake Pepin, Minnesota.

1947: Barefoot water skiing is born in Winter Haven, Florida, when water ski pioneer Chuck Sligh theorizes that skiing without skis might be possible if boat speed is increased. Seventeen-year-old A.G. Hancock, proves him right but leaves on a family vacation before he can show the trick to Cypress Gardens' Dick Pope Sr. Pope's son, Dick Pope Jr., successfully drops a ski and gets all the glory-- photographs, newsreels, the works. Hancock sees one of the newsreels during his vacation.

1950s/1960s: Barefoot skiing primarily remains a novelty in the U.S., showing up in ski shows such as those at Cypress Gardens and in Wisconsin. Without helmets or the padded barefoot suits worn today, footers learn tricks such as barefooting backward, piggyback-style and with one foot through the ski handle (toehold). Dominance in barefooting shifts from the U.S. to Australia during the 1960s.

1961: Australia organizes its first barefoot nationals, more than 10 years ahead of the Americans. Of course, it doesn't include jumping, since no one has jumped yet.

1967 (approximately): Australian barefooters begin experimenting with jumping a water ski-style jump ramp.

1969: The American Water Ski Association's magazine, "The Skier," shows a picture of U.S. show skier Mike Pierce jumping in a 1969 issue.

1973: Cypress Gardens hosts the International Championships, the first international barefoot competition. The Australian team demonstrates barefoot jumping to the U.S. footers. 16-year-old Grant Torrens of Australia is the overall winner.

1977: U.S. skiers begin barefoot jumping. Australian footer John Hacker, one of the skiers at the 1973 Cypress Garden event, returns to the U.S. to teach U.S. skiers how to jump. The earliest U.S. jumpers include William Farrell, Ed Finley, Mike Seipel and Bill Price. Finley wins the Bougue Falaya barefoot tournament in Covington, Louisiana--the first U.S. barefoot tournament to include jumping. Richard Mainwaring of the U.K. becomes one of the first barefoot jumpers in Great Britain.

1978: The American Barefoot Club, an affiliate of the American Water Ski Association, formed, giving a denied credibility to skiing without skis in the U.S. The first Barefoot World Championships in Canberra, Australia, and the first U.S. Barefoot Nationals. The tournaments feature three events: wake slalom, tricks and jumping. Greg Adams, Australia, wins the jump event; fellow Australian Brett Wing takes the overall title.

The U.S. sends its first U.S. barefoot team to the Worlds. Team members include Mike Seipel and William Farrell. Farrell didn't know how to barefoot backward when he was chosen for the team; he won a spot because he could jump. He utilized a technique known as bum jumping- -the skier went up and off the ramp on his buttocks, jumping farther than feet-to-feet jumpers but often uncontrollably. In November, Greg Rees of Australia sets the first world record, 44 feet.

1979: Paul Jones of Australia sets a new world record of 49 feet. He breaks it with a 49.5-foot jump within the next two weeks. Mike Seipel wins his first of seven national barefoot jump titles.

1980: Vaugan Cox of New Zealand breaks Jones' world record with a 50.2-foot jump. Twenty-one days later his record is broken by South Africa's Peter Lindenberg, who jumps an incredible 57.4 feet. Australian Brett Wing wins the jump event and the overall title at the Barefoot Worlds in California. Mike Seipel gives mainstream America a taste of barefoot jumping when he appears on the TV show That's Incredible.

1981: The Australians take back possession of the world record with Brett Wing's 61.3-foot jump, a record that stands for more than three years.

1982:Ron Scarpa of the U.S. wins the jump event at the Barefoot Worlds in Acapulco. Brett Wing takes home his third consecutive overall title and then retires undefeated.

1984: Mike Seipel sets a new world jump record of 65.9 feet.

Mid-1980s: Not everyone in the barefoot community is a fan of jumping. Well-known U.S. barefooter John Gillette, president of the American Barefoot Club and author of the first comprehensive book on barefooting (1980), opposes jumping so strongly that he lobbies to remove the event from sanctioned competition. Although he has some support, the attempt fizzles.

1985: Quentin Posthumus of South Africa gets his turn with the world jump record after soaring 67.2 feet. The record will not be broken until 1988. Peter Wellham of Australia wins the jump event at the Barefoot Worlds in Canberra, Australia, and Mike Seipel wins his first world overall barefoot title.

1986: Ron Scarpa jumps out of a helicopter 67 feet above the water and barefoots away for the Guinness Book of World Records. In Kelheim, West Germany, Gavin O'Mahoney of Australia wins the Barefoot Worlds jump event, but Mike Seipel captures the overall for the second time.

1988: Mike Seipel sets his second world record: 69.2 feet. Bum jumping is prohibited in competition after the 1988 Worlds: Members of the barefoot community say barefoot jumping isn't barefoot jumping if it's not done on the feet. The unofficial reason may be that bum jumpers have learned to control and ski away from their jumps. Australian jumper Rod Trevillian wins the jump event at the Worlds bum jumping. Rick Powell of the U.S. takes the overall title.

1989: In Feb., Australian Dodd Dwyer takes the world record Down Under when he jumps 70.2 feet. Brett Sands breaks the record 13 days later by jumping 72.5 feet. Ron Scarpa's book on barefooting, "Barefoot Water Skiing: An Illustrated Guide to Learning and Mastering the Sport", illustrates the still controversial nature of barefoot jumping by not mentioning it once in the entire book.

1989/1990: Mike Seipel makes his first inverted jump -- unintentionally. He says it happened because he had learned to relax his body while jumping, to the point that after he went off the ramp, his feet went out behind him. The first time it happened, he let go of the handle because he thought, "I'm going to kill myself." But he realized he had jumped farther and so tried it again, skiing away from the jump on his third try.

1990: Mike Seipel unveils the inverted jump in competition at the 1990 Barefoot Nationals in Illinois and jumps 72.8 feet for a new world record and, of course, the national jump title. Zenon Bilas says the lightbulb went off in his head when he saw Seipel's new jump style. "I said to myself, 'This is it. This is how it should be done.'" Few share his opinion, saying inverted jumping is even more dangerous than traditional jump style.

U.S. skier Casey Scalise is the second skier to master inverted jumping as he trains with Seipel for the 1990 Worlds in Florida. Seipel, further refining his inverted jump technique, sets another world record of 76.4 feet less than two months later at the Worlds. But it's Rick Powell of the U.S. who earns the overall world title.

1991: The floodgates open. After training with Mike Seipel during the winter, Jon Kretchman of the U.S. switches to inverted jumping and sets a new world jump record of 86.3 feet. (The record isn't broken for a year and a half.) Apparently, Seipel's and Scalise's inverted jumps weren't so much farther than most jumpers believed they ultimately could match or better jumping in the traditional style.

Kretchman's new record eclipses Seipel's by a whopping 9.9 feet, and until that event Kretchman wasn't known as a particularly strong jumper. Barefooters around the world quickly began learning the inverted jump to avoid being left behind in the dark ages of 60- to 75-foot jumps.

1992: Ron Scarpa acquires the world overall title. Lane Bowers, a U.S. skier, wins the Worlds jump event. Barefoot skiers from South Africa compete for the first time at the Barefoot Worlds. They hadn't been allowed to compete in the tournament since its inception because of international sanctions over Apartheid.

1993: Dodd Dwyer of Australia sets the world record for the second time in his career with an 88.9-foot jump.

1994: Jon Kretchman recaptures the world record with an 88.9-foot jump, only to be bested by the U.K.'s Richard Mainwaring the following month. Mainwaring, Europe's top barefooter but until now not at the top of the international barefoot jump heap, jumps 90.2 feet. At the Barefoot Worlds in Sydney, Australia, the Aussies dominate as Brett Fritsch wins the jump event and John Pennay foots his way to the overall title.

1995: The 1995 U.S. barefoot season opens with the Budweiser Pro Water Ski Tour stopping in Orlando, Florida. Peter Fleck wins the barefoot jump event with an 88.75-foot jump. He is the only jumper at the event to land all three of his jumps. The tour stop also introduces a new barefoot jump format in which competitors get extra points for doing barefoot tricks during their approach to the ramp. The same format is used for the Extreme Games where Australia's Justin Seers tops veteran Ron Scarpa to win the title. The world record is smashed again as Italy's Massimiliano Colosio jumps 92 feet.

The inverted jumping style is the norm. Every top barefoot jumper is being more aggressive in the inverted style, and jumps are going farther and farther. In 1994, there was one 90-foot jump. In 1995, there were four. In 1996, a 90-foot jump is probably needed for one to win. Peter Fleck says it's now the standard and, provided the conditions are good, anyone could top the 90-foot barrier. The 100-foot mark may also be challenged this year for the first time ever.