Meyer brings home silver medals from hurricane-ravaged barefoot worlds

The County’s Becky Meyer won silver at the 2024 IWWF Open, U23, and Junior World Barefoot Water Ski Championships last week. (File photo from Water Ski and Wakeboard Canada) 

The County’s Becky Meyer made it home safely with her family following a hurricane ravaged World Barefoot Water Ski Championship in Florida last week.

The competition at Championship Lake in Auburndale, Florida – 105 miles inland from where hurricane Milton first hit the coast at Siesta Key as a dangerous category 3 storm – was put on hold for two days, then concluded early.

Beck Meyer won silver in the Open Women’s Overall and Open Women’s Trick events. This was the first Open Worlds Overall medal won by a Canadian barefooter, male or female, since 1992.

Despite not competing in the semi-finals of slalom and jump, Meyer represented Canada and won silver in the Open Women’s Overall and Open Women’s Trick events.

Notably, this was the first Open Worlds Overall medal won by a Canadian barefooter, male or female, since 1992.

Competitors attended from locations including Great Britain, Netherlands, USA, Italy, Australia, Germany, New Zealand, Austria and Canada.

“The hurricane did have a big impact on the event,” scheduled to run Oct 5-12th, said Meyer. “The opening ceremonies took place on Oct 5th, and the tournament skiing took place on Oct 6th and 7th, during which I competed in the preliminary round of each event (tricks, slalom and jump). Unfortunately, the conditions were rainy, windy and less than ideal on both these days making it challenging for all skiers.”

“On Oct 8th, (Tuesday morning) because of the incoming hurricane, myself and my family as well as some of the other skiers chose to leave the area to get out of the path of the storm. The tournament skiing did continue to run on the Tuesday, so unfortunately I missed the semi-finals of two of my events because of this. The tournament was postponed for Wednesday and Thursday due to the storm as it was predicted to move directly over the area of the competition.”

She noted many of the athletes and officials either travelled north or south out of the path of the storm, or just hunkered down in a house.

“After the storm had passed, the area where the tournament was held had some damage, but not as bad as was anticipated. However, there was still limited gas stations with fuel, many homes without power, and lots of trees, branches and debris scattered in different areas. Given the circumstances, the event officials and team managers from the participating countries decided it was most appropriate to cancel the remainder of the event.

Despite the storm, Meyer was pleased to end up finishing second in the trick event, and second overall, despite missing the semi-finals of slalom and jump.

“t was a memorable week to say the least, but far from a typical world championships. A challenge for the organizers, athletes and officials, but all made the best of it dealing with what Mother Nature had dealt.”

Meyer (nee Moynes) has 20 years of competitive barefooting experience having won bronze medals the Open Women’s Jump event at both the 2018 and 2010 world championships. She has also held the title of Canadian Open Women’s Champion since 2013.

Meyer got started barefooting with friends at her parents’ cottage, and now is thrilled to be sharing the experience with her two daughters. Her five-year-old even got up barefooting on the boom this summer, a proud moment for mom.

She provides this backgrounder:

Barefoot skiing is water skiing behind a motorboat without the use of water skis, commonly referred to as “barefooting”. Barefooting requires the skier to travel at higher speeds than conventional water skiing (40-45mph). There are three events in competitive barefooting — tricks, slalom and jump.

Slalom — In the slalom event, each barefooter performs two passes of 15 seconds to cross the wake as many times as possible. The skier can cross the wake forward or backward and on two feet or one foot.

Tricks — In the trick event, each barefooter performs two passes of 15 seconds to complete as many different tricks as possible. All tricks have specific point values depending on difficulty. The skier also is awarded points for the start trick they performed to get up.

Jump — Barefoot Jumping consists of a barefooter traveling over a small, fiberglass jump ramp that is approximately eight feet long, and 18 inches high at the high end of the ramp. They have three jump attempts and the longest one that is successfully landed and skied away counts.

For each event, judges ride in the boat and record what the skier does. The judges sheets then get scored and added up after. For each division of the tournament (e.g. Open Men, Open Women, Junior Girls, Junior Boys), the judges and boat driver remain the same throughout the division to provide consistency amongst the skiers competing against each other.