Slalom, tricks and jumping are the three events of traditional water skiing that make up the oldest and most original discipline of water skiing.

The slalom event is performed on one ski by an athlete attempting to negotiate his way around the outside of six buoys in a zigzag course without falling or missing a buoy in consecutive passes.

An athlete receives one point for each buoy that he successfully rounds. The athlete who skis around the most buoys and scores the most points, wins the event.

Each athlete begins with a 23-meter (75-foot) slalom rope at the minimum boat speed for his age/gender division. Once an athlete has run enough passes to reach maximum boat speed for his division, the rope is shortened in pre-measured lengths until he misses a buoy or falls.

The tricks event has been described as the most technical of the three events. Beginners perform this event on two short skis, and intermediate to elite athletes perform on one short ski.

An athlete attempts to perform as many tricks as he can during two 20-second passes. Each trick has a assigned point value and an athlete may perform each trick only once. The athlete who earns the most points wins the event.

Tricks are performed either with an athlete's foot slipped into a strap attached to the handle, called toehold tricks, or with the handle held in the athlete's hands.

The object of the jumping event is for an athlete to jump as far as he can. There are no style points just pop off of the ramp and fly!

Each athlete has three attempts to jump as far as he can. In each age/gender division, there is a set boat speed and the ramp height is set at five feet (1.5 meters) in most divisions. However, elite women jump at a ramp height of 5-1/2 feet (1.6 meters) and elite men jump at six feet (1.8 meters).

Although most jump distances for the average male and female range between 80 and 170 feet (24 and 52 meters), the Men's world record is 236 feet (71.9 meters), which is equivalent to jumping as far as someone kicking a 78-yard field goal in football!

(description and pictures courtesy of USAWaterski)

International water ski competitions have been held since 1949 with the first World Championships in Jaun-Les-Pins, France. The World Championships are held every two years. Over the years Cash Prize tournaments have been held. There have been various professional tours as well as many long term stand alone premiere events such as the Masters (USA since 1958) and Moomba (AUS since 1961). The World Cup designation was first used as an intenational team style tournament with tournaments in Tahiti and Bordeux, France. Most recently, the World Cup was a yearly set of tournaments sponsored by Cafe de Colombia between 1996 and 2000.

This year, the IWSF has decided to re-establish the World Cup with both traditional three event skiing and wakeboarding as separate/combined tours. The focus this time is to incorporate some established events as well as showcase the tournaments in major cities of the world and present the results as a syndicated TV package. It looks like an exciting year for the world of competition water skiing.

For a reference to the past, here are the World Cup results from 1996-2005

2005 2004 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 Men Slalom Men Jump Women Slalom Women Jump

Click here to see all World Cup Event Winners. 1996-date