Welcome to the Gold Coast Ski Club 3-Event Home Page

Hi everyone!
Brad Cox, 3 Event Director

3 EVENT WATER SKIING

Click here for Slalom Course Damage Prevention & Repair Procedures

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

SLALOM

Kip Farris (Click on the picture to enlarge it)

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

Each skier 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.
Therefore, the skier who rounds the most consecutive buoys at the
shortest line length wins the event.

TRICKS

Geoff West (Click on the picture to enlarge it)


The tricks event (called figures outside the United States) has been
described as the most technical of the three events. Beginners perform
this event on two short trick skis, and intermediate to elite athletes
perform on one trick ski. A skier attempts to perform as many tricks as
he/she can during two 20-second passes. Each trick has a pre-assigned
point value and an athlete may perform each trick only once. And each
trick must be performed correctly, according to predefined criteria, in
order to receive credit by the event judges. The skier who earns the
most total points for the two passes wins the event.

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

JUMPING

The object of the jumping event is for a skier to jump as far as he can.
There are no style points, just pop off of the ramp and fly! Each skier
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 (1.7 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
233 feet (70.9 meters), which is equivalent to jumping as far as someone
kicking a 77-yard field goal in football!