Bodyboarding is a water sport in which the surfer rides a bodyboard on the crest, face, and curl of a wave which is carrying the surfer towards the shore. Bodyboarding is also referred to as Boogieboarding due to the invention of the "Boogie Board" by Tom Morey in 1971. The average bodyboard consists of a short, rectangular piece of hydrodynamic foam. Bodyboarders typically use swim fins for additional propulsion and control while riding a breaking wave.
Bodysurfing is the art and sport of riding a wave without the assistance of any buoyant device such as a surfboard or bodyboard. Bodysurfers often equip themselves with a pair of swimfins that aid propulsion and help the bodysurfer catch, ride and kick out of waves. Some bodysurfers also use a wooden or foam handplane, which helps to get one's chest out of the water to reduce drag, this is known as handplaning and is an offshoot of bodysurfing.
Robert Kelly Slater is an American professional surfer, best known for being crowned World Surf League champion a record 11 times. Slater is widely regarded as the greatest professional surfer of all time, and holds 56 Championship Tour victories. Slater is also the oldest surfer still active on the World Surf League, winning his 8th Billabong Pipeline Masters title at age 49.
Big wave surfing is a discipline within surfing in which experienced surfers paddle into, or are towed into, waves which are at least 20 feet high, on surf boards known as "guns" or towboards. Sizes of the board needed to successfully surf these waves vary by the size of the wave as well as the technique the surfer uses to reach the wave. A larger, longer board allows a rider to paddle fast enough to catch the wave and has the advantage of being more stable, but it also limits maneuverability and surfing speed.
Mike Stewart is a nine-time World Champion bodyboarder, one of the early pioneers of the bodyboarding sport, a pioneer of big-wave tow-in surfing and also a champion bodysurfer.
Damian King is an Australian professional bodyboarder. He was World Bodyboarding Champion twice, in 2003 and 2004. In 2011 he won the Dropknee World Tour becoming the first bodyboarder in history to win both prone and dropknee world titles.
The Shark Island Challenge (SIC), held near Cronulla, New South Wales, Australia, is the most celebrated World Tour event in bodyboarding since the elimination of the Teahupoo Challenge (Teahupoo) from the world bodyboarding tour.
José Otavio, or Zé Otavio, is the given name of a Brazilian bodyboarder. He was born in the landlocked state of Minas Gerais. He started to surf in Guriri, Espírito Santo, and he developed his skills as a bodyboarder on the beaches of Niterói, in the state of Rio de Janeiro. Otavio has continued his career by surfing Brazil's most sought after bodyboarding waves at Itacoatiara beach. He was the first bodyboarder to execute a 720° reverse air spinner caught on tape, which can be seen in the bodyboarding video movie QUE! Mutação.
The Banzai Pipeline, or simply Pipeline or Pipe, is a surf reef break located in Hawaii, off Ehukai Beach Park in Pupukea on O'ahu's North Shore. A reef break is an area in the ocean where waves start to break once they reach the shallows of a reef. Pipeline is known for huge waves that break in shallow water just above a sharp and cavernous reef, forming large, hollow, thick curls of water that surfers can tube ride. There are three reefs at Pipeline in progressively deeper water farther out to sea that activate according to the increasing size of approaching ocean swells.
Patrick Shane Dorian, or "Shane", is an American surfer from Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. He spent 11 years touring on the World Championship Tour as a professional surfer. Dorian quit competition surfing in 2003 to focus on big waves. He is currently a big wave surfer and one of the best in the world at big wave riding.
Andre Botha is a South African bodyboarder. Born in Cape Town in 1981, he left school at the age of 15 to become a professional bodyboarder and won his first world title at the age of 17 and his second at 18, winning both the World GOB Tour Series and the Pipeline World Championships.
Ben Severson is a Sandy Beach bodyboarder. He was the 1986 world bodyboarding champion.
Ben Player is an Australian bodyboarder who was world champion in 2005, 2007 and 2013. His 2007 victory came after placing second in the 2006 Pipeline final. He has finished #2 overall on the World Bodyboarding Tour several times. Ben now also helps run Movement Bodyboarding magazine.
The Pipeline Bodysurfing Classic (PBC) is a bodysurfing competition held annually during the winter season at the Banzai Pipeline on the North Shore of the island of Oahu in Hawaii.
Flowriding or Flowboarding is a late-20th century alternative boardsport incorporating elements of surfing, bodyboarding, skateboarding, skimboarding, snowboarding and wakeboarding.
John "John John" Alexander Florence is an American professional surfer. He is known as "one of the most dominant pipe surfers of his era" and won back-to-back world titles on the 2016 World Surf League and 2017 World Surf League Men's Championship Tour. He is the first Hawaii-born surfer to win back-to-back world titles since the late Andy Irons. In 2019, Florence qualified to represent the United States at the 2020 Summer Olympics in surfing. From 2018 he has been struggling with some knee injuries.
Teahupoʻo is a village on the southwestern coast of the island of Tahiti, French Polynesia, in the southern Pacific Ocean.
Mathieu Schiller was a French bodyboarder. Crowned French champion in 1993, he later won the team event of the European championships in 1995. He died in a shark attack off Saint-Gilles, Réunion. The attack was likely caused by multiple tiger shark or bull sharks. The presence of sharks and turbulent conditions forced rescuers to abandon an immediate attempt to retrieve his body; his remains were never recovered.
