The first one features Jeremy Petrie (right) against Luke Bruckner (left) as Jeremy fights to maintain his grip on the handle, re-gripping it many times. Luke wins and goes on to take 6th. Jeremy wins 8th. There’s a lot of re-gripping going on. This video starts after they already made one eight.

Footstock – Jeremy Petrie vs Luke Bruckner [video]

The next features Dan Ehlers, who is hailed as the comeback story of the year at Footstock, who after 21 years took 4th place, versus Keith St Onge, one  of the world’s very best barefooters.

Footstock – Dan Ehlers vs Keith St Onge [video]

First place went to Mark “The Porn Star” Donahue who beat the legend Peter Fleck in a record breaking 5-1/4 Figure-8s’s to take the title of 2010 Footstock Champion! Earlier in the day, Fleck had beaten Donahue to become the last undefeated footer, putting Donahue into the loser’s bracket.

Rounding out the top three was Keith St Onge. Dan Ehllers took fourth, Chris Van Zeeland took fifth, Luke Brukner took sixth and Josh Bruns took seventh.

The last four unbeaten footers were Van Zeeland (he put KSO in to the loser’s bracket), Ehllers, Donahue and Fleck.

Based on the Facebook Status Updates provided by Gary Mueller on the Footstock page, it sounds like Donahue beat KSO with a run longer than 4-1/2 fig-8s to advance to the finals. He then had to beat Fleck twice. The first run was the record breaking 5-1/4 fig-8 and the second run was 3-1/2 fig-8s. Counting all of those fig-8′s up, the Porn Star did 13-1/4 figure-8′s to beat two of the best barefooters in the world.

In the Seniors Division, Peter Fleck took first, Mark Donahue took second and The Mule, Bob Mahnke, took 3rd.

In the Junior Division, Sam Landgraf took first, Nich Ruchti took second, Jake Wiedemeier took third, Jake Smith took fourth and Blake Pluemer took fifth.

Elaine Heller took 1st in the Women’s Division. And from the sounds of it, there were more than a couple pink shirts handed out in the Open Division.

If I’ve made any mistakes, please let me know and I’ll get the story updated. If you have video, pictures, whatever, let me know, I’d like to get it out to the barefooting world.

For more scores, you can check out the full USA Water Ski Press Release and at least for the time being, you can find all of the scores here (via the ABC website).

On a related note, I did get to watch a little bit of the webcast of this event that the World Barefoot Center did. Not the slickest production I’ve seen, but they are aware of that and are working on making it better (when I watched, there was a kid posing in the background). Yes, there were a couple small technical hick-ups, but nothing major. What I did like was the live feed from the boat to show each person’s runs. You could see exactly what the judges could see with a view right from the boat. I was only able to watch for a little bit on Saturday morning and watched a 82 year old and 75 year old do their trick runs. (I hope I’m still able to barefoot at their ages.) Swampy did a good job describing what he was seeing, estimating their scores, describing why somethings counted and why some didn’t. I give MAD PROPS to the WBC for making this happen. I’m sure they made countless peoples’ days by enabling them to watch their friends and family compete at Nationals. I can’t wait to see what they do next time.

*everywhere that publishes barefoot water skiing results

I can’t find a source to back this up, but I remember seeing a USA Water Ski post go through my RSS reader about Keith St. Onge winning gold at Worlds and I know he also won gold at Nationals as well as set a pending trick record. (article)

Here’s a link with all of the Nationals results.

Finally… a little teaser. Keep an eye on here for a pretty sweat barefoot video (or two) coming soon. Camera work kinda sucks and the view point isn’t that great, but the trick is more than kick ass and makes up for the poor camera work and bad perspective.

Enjoy…

Fearless Footers [video]

The issue is primarily focus on the details of the Wisconsin Water Skiing Expo and Convention (previously called Think Tank) with details on all of the various sessions available.  But towards the back of the book there are three good barefooting articles.

The first barefooting article is by Jamie Kunlien.  He recently just competed at Worlds in New Zealand and in the summer is a member of the Janesville Rock Aqua Jays (a show ski team in Wisconsin).  His article went through many good things to think about when going to a barefooting school, or any type of water skiing instruction, and really any type of instruction in general.  He wrote about what you need to do be an Active Learner. There’s a lot there that seems obvious, but it is worth everyone’s time to read it. You can apply it to a lot more than just barefooting.

The second article is by Paul MacDonald, also a world class barefooter.  His article is about how to dryland train for barefooting. This is a good article for those of us in the frozen north because even if we do get out on the lake, we’re probably ice fishing right now.  He goes through several things to work on when you’re not on the water and how they’ll translate to making you better on the water.

The third and final article is by Dave Small, yet another world class barefooter. His article talks about how to do a tumble turn.  It’s a simple trick and his explanation is yet another rephrasing of every other explanation of how to do a tumble turn.  It wasn’t anything new, but hearing everyone give a consistent explanation means it must be the right way to explain it.

Finally, for those of you looking for something to do the weekend of February 27th thru March 1st, come to Wisconsin Dells for the Water Skiing Expo.  They’ll be several sessions about barefooting with topics about goals, driving, how to practice, stretching, figure-8 competition (by KSO), back deeps, 3-event (by KSO), and about what barefooting can teach you about life.

I know I’ll be attending some of these sessions, as well as many other sesssions about show skiing.  This year one of my goals for Think Tank is to do less 12-ounce curls on Friday night.  :)  I hope to meet some of you there.  Ask around for Wedge.  There are lots of people that know who I am.

I’ve copied it below because theirs will disappear eventually.

The U.S. Elite Barefoot Water Ski Team and the U.S. Senior Barefoot Water Ski Team each won overall team gold medals, the U.S. Junior Barefoot Water Ski Team earned the overall team bronze medal, and 15 U.S. athletes combined to earn 37 individual medals in respective events as the Barefoot Water Ski World Championships concluded Sunday at Lake Inspiration and Forest Lakes in Otaki, New Zealand.

For the second time, the biennial Elite (Open) Barefoot Water Ski World Championships was held simultaneously with the biennial Junior and Senior Barefoot Water Ski World Championships. The seven-day event featured more than 130 athletes from 13 countries. The Elite Barefoot Worlds took place for the 16th time, while the Junior Barefoot Worlds was held for the eighth time and the Senior Barefoot Worlds commenced for the sixth time.

Athletes participating as members of the U.S. Elite Barefoot Water Ski Team were: Ryan Boyd (Orlando, Fla.), Billy Brzoza (Coventry, R.I.), William Farrell (West Sacramento, Calif.),Elaine Heller (Alma Center, Wis.), Keith St. Onge (Winter Haven, Fla.) and Laura Szwed (White Lake, Mich.). The U.S. Elite Barefoot Water Ski Team won its 12th consecutive world team title. South Africa earned the silver medal and Australia claimed the bronze medal. 

The U.S. Elite Team was led by St. Onge, who won gold medals in men’s slalom and overall, the silver medal in jumping, and the bronze medal in tricks. Brzoza earned the silver medal in men’s slalom; Heller earned silver medals in women’s slalom, tricks, jumping and overall; and Szwed earned bronze medals in women’s slalom and tricks.

For complete results of the Elite Worlds, click here.

Athletes competing as members of the U.S. Senior Barefoot Water Ski Team were: Adin Daneker (Olympia, Wash.), Andrea Eggert (Smyrna, Ga.), Mike Salber (Clermont, Fla.), Heather Towers (Venetia, Pa.) and Kevin Towers (Venetia, Pa.). The U.S. Senior Team won the gold medal, followed by Australia and New Zealand.

Salber won gold medals in men’s tricks and overall, and silver medals in slalom and jumping; Kevin Towers won gold medals in men’s slalom and jumping, and silver medals in tricks and overall; Heather Towers won the gold medal in women’s slalom, silver medals in tricks and overall, and the bronze medal in jumping; and Eggert won the gold medal in women’s jumping.

A handful of U.S. independent competitors also earned medals in the Senior Worlds. Teri Jones (Tucker, Ga.) earned the silver medal in women’s jumping and bronze medals in tricks and overall;Tenley Cederstrand (Tacoma, Wash.) earned the bronze medal in women’s slalom; and Jerry Kanawyer (Byron, Calif.) earned bronze medals in men’s slalom and tricks.

For complete results from the Senior Worlds, click here.

Athletes participating as members of the U.S. Junior Barefoot Water Ski Team were: Shannon Heller (Alma Center, Wis.),Jacklyn Kumlien (Janesville, Wis.), Jamie Kumlien (Janesville, Wis.), A.J. Porecca (Willowbrook, Ill.) and Lisa Pressendo (Port St. Lucie, Fla.). The U.S. Junior Team earned the bronze medal. South Africa won the gold medal and Australia earned the silver medal.

Heller earned silver medals in junior women’s slalom, jumping and overall; and Jamie Kumlien earned bronze medals in junior men’s tricks and overall; Porreca earned the bronze medal in junior men’s jumping. John Pressendo (Port St. Lucie, Fla.), competing as a U.S. independent, earned the silver medal in junior men’s slalom.

For complete results from the Junior Worlds, click here.

The results of the Men’s Open Finals have been posted on the Australian Barefoot Water Ski Club’s website now and here are the final standings for Men’s Open:

1. Keith St Onge (USA)
2. Heinrich Sam (South Africa)
3. Andre De Villiers (South Africa)
4. David Small (Great Britain)

You can view the full results here.

The Women’s Open results are final as well and here are the standings:

1. Ashleigh Stebbeings (Australia)
2. Elaine Heller (USA)
3. Emily Goldia (Great Britain)
4. Laura Szwed (Great Britain)
5. Shannon Heller (USA)