The 2023 USA-WWF Hall of Fame Banquet is 10 days away! We're celebrating two Hall of Fame inductees this year: Keith St. Onge and Jimmy Siemers.
Keith St. Onge
When you think of barefoot water skiing, you think of Keith St. Onge. A dominant force in the sport for decades, KSO set the bar high for the next generation. As a young man, he shared the dock with Scarpa and Seipel and soon surpassed those pioneers of the sport, bringing barefooting into the new millennium.
KSO was the first barefooter to score more than 10,000 points in tricks and has set world records in all three events. He currently holds the men's slalom world record of 20.6 points. He's won 14 world championship gold medals and is a two-time overall world champion.
KSO has also won the U.S. National Overall title an unprecedented 19 times. Outside traditional three-event barefooting, KSO has won the Footstock Figure Eight National Championship three times.
KSO is a two-time International Waterski & Wakeboard Federation Athlete of the Year, he has won the USA Water Ski Athlete of the Year multiple times, is a Banana George Blairfooter of the Year, competed in the ESPN X-Games, and served as an American Barefoot Club Tournament Driver and Judge. He also is a member of the 2022 World Show Ski Team which will be competing in October.
KSO may have stopped barefooting competitively, but he still spends nearly every day on the lake with his family passing on his unwavering love of all types of water sports.
Jimmy Siemers
Jimmy Siemers is a three-time world-record holder and three-time world champion. He set two world records in the jumping event with 233 feet and 236 feet and his best skiing moment came when he set the world overall record.
Jimmy is a four-time U.S. Masters tricks champion, two-time Moomba Masters tricks champion, and two-time U.S. Open overall champion. In 2003 he was named the IWWF’s Male Water Ski Athlete of the Year after an incredible run of accomplishments that saw him win gold medals in tricks, jumping, and overall at the U21 Water Ski World Championships; gold medals in tricks and overall and the silver in jumping at the Elite Water Ski World Championships; gold medals in Open Men tricks, jumping and overall at the Goode Water Ski National Championships; pro jump titles at the Malibu Open and MasterCraft Pro; gold medals in tricks, jumping and overall at the Collegiate All-Stars; and the gold medal in tricks at the Collegiate Nationals.
He is a former member of the Arizona State water ski team, for which he won the trick event at Collegiate Nationals four times in his four years on the team before graduating in 2006. In addition to his four trick wins, he was an All-American in tricks, jumping, and overall throughout his college career. He also set a collegiate tricks record in his last tournament as a college student.
Learn more about our 2023 Hall of Fame Ceremony:
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