| by
Clint Vievers The
Barefoot season in Australia has come to a close with the National
Titles being held near Renmark in South Australia by the South
Australian Barefoot Water-ski Club. The competition was held from
Tuesday the 25th of April to Saturday the 29th using two different
sites.
Out of all the AWWF divisions in Australia, barefoot was the only one to
grow in numbers at the national level. 87 skiers were nominated and 81
turned out to compete. This is great news for barefooting in Australia.
A new division has also been added to the Nationals being Men’s 3.
There were 19 skiers making it the biggest group of the
tournament. Men’s 3 ski in trick and slalom before going up to Men’s 2
where the jump is introduced.
 The
area around Renmark is like a little oasis on the mighty Murray River
with the surrounding country side being quite dry. As a barefooter,
it’s easy to fall in love with the place seeing the beautiful
willow trees draping down into the water along the waters edge with big
River Gums dotted indiscriminately about the place following the Murray
along its way. Lawns are tendered perfectly, stone buildings seem to
make up the majority of most establishments but most importantly the
river is wide and tantalizingly flat most of the time. If I had my boat
down there the missus would have needed a team of wild horses to drag me
away from the place. The Murray River is Australia’s longest continuous
river and is the world’s fourth largest river system being half the
length of the Nile at approx. 3370km long. It is measured from its
source in Queensland to its mouth at Goolwa in South Australia. (Most of
everything good in Australia originates from Queensland Ha-ha!!)
Speaking about things that originate from Queensland,
after arriving at the Adelaide airport my wife Sharon, son Bronson and I
bumped into someone who originates from somewhere that couldn’t be
further from QLD. He is a walking book of knowledge on all things
trivial and most things important being our Chief Judge for this years
Nationals Oscar “Foot” Mann. Everyone who knows Foots (almost every
barefooter on the planet) calls him Foot, so whenever you see I’ve
written Foot with a capital ‘F’ you know who I’m on about. Foots saddled
up with us for the trip to Renmark and by the time we got there he had
force fed me enough chocolate that I was about to OD on the stuff.
He always has a block stashed somewhere
and can regularly be found chewing on a bit. We also learned
just about everything there was to know about Adelaide and the surroundings
from the day it was established until present day as Foot has an
unquenchable appetite for information and an uncanny ability to remember
most of it. Foot is our number one coach
up here in QLD and we are bloody glad we have his generous help and
expertise on hand. Foot is a stickler for dry land practice and
explaining things in layman’s terms to a broad audience. I hope he has a
good explanation of this photo with a gorgeous young lady at the
presentation dinner to his wife!
Two different sites were used for the
week with the main site being in the path of all river traffic coming to
and fro. The river was closed for the event but we had to stop every now
and then to let the houseboats and such through. This held things up a
little and site 2 proved to be a great move to keep things rolling being
about 10 minutes away. Inclement weather set in for half of one day and
the events were being re-posted by the hour. Once again site 2 kept
things going. The main site was awesome with a beach front for
spectators and a good layout. The water did tend to be a bit rolly for
skiers but that was managed well by our hardworking officials utilizing
turn around times and two way communication between boats and land at
all times. The river also has a current that had to be allowed for just
to make things a bit harder for our officials and drivers. As a
Queenslander I have to mention the temperature of the water. It was only
15 degrees Celsius but after coming from warmer climes,
it felt like razor blades crawling into our suits.
Custom Ski Boats were once again used as
the tournament tow boats. The main boat was a new Protégé fitted with
the latest in line six cylinder supercharged 275hp Mercury Verado. The
other was another Protégé fitted with a 225 Mercury Optimax. Those of
you who skied or were spectators at the worlds in Mulwala in 2004 would
be familiar with this boat as it was the yellow boat that towed that
event. The 275 Verado is one powerful mother with enough grunt to make
the Murray stop and start flowing back to the Snowy Mountains every time
it took off. Between two different boat washes and rolly water
conditions skiers were certainly put through their paces and more than
one skier found themselves swimming back to the bank. That being said
there were still many PB’s presented at the award night.
The biggest news from the Nationals was
the new Australian and AA Region jump record being broken. It wasn’t a
bird, or a plane, or Clark Kent trying to find his way back to
Smallville, but none other than Brett New touching down after flying
26.5 meters in the classic one handed technique that he uses. Brett has
jumped bigger before so it is only a matter of time before the world
record books will be re-written again. (Not that I’m trying to put any
pressure on or anything Brett!)
Peter O’Neil won overall again after
recently recovering from a broken leg. I’m beginning to think that Pete
jilted a voodoo lover at some stage and every now and then she breaks
another part of him. Not that long back, he tore his hamstring off the
bone and then suffered other complications. It’s notable that both times
Pete was not barefooting. The first time he was on skis and the second
time on a tube. It’s funny when you hear people going on about
barefooting being dangerous. I reckon that those mongrel tubes must be
the real hit-men of water sports.
The presentation night was a big one as usual with some good speeches-
some short, some looooong, some funny, and one quite emotional. The Holland
Shield for the overall winning team was won by Queensland.
Ash Stebbeings accepted the shield as manager of the team and was quick to
assert that Queensland was by far the best state after a previous
speaker mentioned otherwise. The retort was funny- at least I thought it
was! Next year Queensland plans to bring a bigger and better team so
look out Australia.
The Men’s 2 and now Men’s 3 as well, have traditionally been the most
social of the divisions. Sledging and practical jokes on the dock are
common and all in good fun making it fun to be a part of. This year was
no exception with a motivational speaker having been
organized for one
of the evenings on board one of the hired houseboats. The motivation bit
must have worked as Filippo Mussano who was an invitational skier from
Italy near where the Torino Winter Olympics were held, was motivated
enough to shave off what was left of his eyebrows the next day. It can
only happen in Men’s 2 and 3 and if you want to know what went down then
you’ll have to come along to an Australian Nationals and see for
yourself!
It was a great show that the South Aussies put on and will be very
memorable for those of us who were there for years to come. I hope the
sponsors were happy with their media coverage and exposure and continue
to offer their support in the future. Next year our Nationals will be
held in Liverpool, Sydney. I’m told it’s a great location and that it’ll
be a cracker of time.
Winter is starting here in Australia and water sport events are mostly
coming to a close. This basically means that the next big event on the
Calendar will be the Worlds in Washington State U.S.A. in September. The
Australian team has been chosen and I wish them all the best while they
are over there and also everyone else from around the world who will be
competing.
All the best,
Clint Veivers.
 Clint is sponsored by
BarefootCentral.com.au as a Promo Skier & Writer. We
appreciate his support and efforts to bring us these interesting
articles.
If you're someone who
has a passion for the sport and would like to get involved writing
articles about events in your area, be sure to check out our Get
Involved and Get Rewarded Sponsorship Program.
|
Australia Barefoot NATIONALS 
