By Jack Burden

When the conversation turns to innovation in modern trick skiing, it almost always starts with Joel Poland. The multitalented Brit has made “super flips” part of the sport’s everyday vocabulary, turning his signature super-mobe-five into a tournament staple.

But there’s another name worth saying—one rising fast.

Seventeen-year-old Axel Garcia of France has been quietly building a résumé that demands attention. Third at last year’s Under-17 Worlds behind Mati Gonzalez and Jake Abelson. Multiple-time European champion. Top seed into the finals at the recently concluded Under-21 World Championships.

And above all, he’s developed a reputation for one thing: launching himself into frontflips with the kind of style and ease that makes fellow skiers double-take.

Among elite trick skiers, Garcia has been dubbed by some as the “King of the Half Jack.” The half jack—named after American skier Kevin Jack—is a frontflip variation where the skier edges into the wake from an inverted back position before throwing the flip. It’s a close cousin to the wakeboard “tantrum” and has quietly become one of the most common moves in top-level runs. These days, a mobe–reverse–half jack combo is almost as standard as a side slide.

Some, like world record holder Jake Abelson, still favor the more orthodox BFF (frontflip from a regular back position), but that’s becoming rare. The half jack’s speed, consistency, and smooth transition make it the go-to choice.

Garcia hasn’t just mastered it—he’s reinvented it. In 2023, he submitted a clip of himself landing a reverse FFLF, which the IWWF approved as a brand-new trick.

Recently, he posted an Instagram video that made waves: both regular and reverse FFLFs, plus both regular and reverse FFLBBs (frontflip 360s), all starting from the inverted back like a half jack. The reverse FFLBB isn’t even in the rulebook yet—but if Garcia submits it, he could add another flip to the official trick list.

Top names took notice. Pato Font, Mati Gonzalez, and Neilly Ross all jumped into the comments with praise.

Garcia’s skillset is a case study in a long-running debate: whether the IWWF’s trick scoring table needs an overhaul.

Take backflips. Progressing from a basic backflip (BFL) to a backflip 540 (BFL5F) is worth 350 more points—about a 70% increase. But frontflips? A basic FFL is worth 800 points. The 540-degree version (FFL5F) gets just 150 more—less than a 20% bump.

Why? Because of an arbitrary 1,000-point ceiling. Years ago, the double backflip was set at that max value, despite no skier ever landing it. Since then, every trick has had to fit between 500 and that cap, squeezing the spread for higher-difficulty frontflips into a narrow range.

The result: Garcia gains little by throwing his most jaw-dropping tricks. At the Under-21 Worlds, he topped the prelim leaderboard with a run of safe, fast mobes, half-twists, and just two frontflips. Why risk a reverse half jack or a front-full for an extra 100–150 points when a 750-point half-twist is cleaner and safer?

He’s not alone. Abelson regularly posts outrageous frontflips online—no-wake FFLBs, front-fulls from a regular wrap—that never see a start dock in competition. Pato Font has ski-line and spin variations that would make even Cory Pickos jealous. Every top trick skier has an ace or two they leave at home on tournament day.

Part of the reason is difficulty: in trick skiing, you can’t afford an early fall. Speed and consistency win. That’s not a flaw—it’s part of what makes the sport thrilling. But with a different point spread, more of those “party tricks” could become prime-time tricks.

Axel Garcia is exactly the kind of skier trick skiing’s future needs—innovative, fearless, and stylish. His flips are already redefining what’s possible off a ski wake, even if the scorebook hasn’t caught up.

For now, his wildest moves might remain for Instagram. But if the sport wants its brightest stars to keep pushing the limits, it needs to make sure the risk is worth the reward.

Because Garcia may not just be the King of the Half Jack—he might be next in line for the whole trick skiing crown.

By Jack Burden

As the World Championships approach, a quiet but consequential debate is coming to a head: how much is a trick really worth?

At stake is the very structure of trick skiing’s scoring system—a rigid points table that hasn’t fundamentally changed in more than two decades. For athletes like world record holder Joel Poland, that’s no longer acceptable.

“The point values for high-difficulty flips are crippling trick skiing,” Poland told the IWWF Water Ski Council. “It’s limiting what athletes can do.”

Poland should know. Two of his most innovative tricks—the 900-point “UFO” and the 950-point “Matrix”—were recently approved for competition but, in his own words, are “tricks you’ll never see in a tournament” unless something changes. He’s not alone in that sentiment.

A Broken Balance

Trick skiing is unique among board sports: every maneuver has a fixed value, from 40-point surface turns to 950-point flips. The goal is objective scoring. The result? Homogeny.

“Right now the trick point values reward doing more tricks versus doing harder tricks,” said Brooks Wilson on the GrabMatters podcast. “You can get more tricks in because you’re going fast. It’s a speed game.”

That tradeoff—efficiency over difficulty—has shaped elite competition. Instead of variety, most skiers now converge on the same sequence of reliable, high-value tricks.

“We want to see variation,” added Freddie Winter. “Instead, everyone’s forced to do the same kind of runs.”

The Repetition Problem

An analysis of over 100 score sheets at the 2023 World Championships shows just how narrow the tricking landscape has become.

Among hand tricks, backflips dominate. The half twist (BFLB), worth 750 points, appeared in every finalist’s run—typically paired with its reverse. In contrast, the only other trick worth 750, the ski-line seven back, was attempted just once.

The mobe (BFLBB), worth 800 points, was nearly as common, performed by three-quarters of the finalists—far outpacing other tricks in its point range. The basic backflip remains a staple, especially among intermediate-level skiers, tricks worth comparable points, such as W7B, SLBB, and SL5s, were attempted much less often and with much lower success.

Toe tricks show a similar pattern. Toe back-to-backs (TBB) are ubiquitous, appearing in 112 of 117 toe runs (the exceptions were early falls). Toe wake back-to-backs were also incredibly common; the regular and its reverse featured in every single finalist’s toe run. Toe wake tricks worth comparable points, such as TWO or TWLB, were less common, although some of this stems from them not having an easy reverse.

Misaligned Incentives

Not all frequently performed tricks are necessarily overvalued—some, like backflips, may be common because they serve as foundational building blocks for higher-scoring flips. And in toe runs, the inherent physical limitations naturally result in a narrower pool of viable tricks and sequences.

But some mismatches are hard to ignore. Why does the toe wake back-to-back (TWBB) score more than the toe wake 360 (TWO), despite similar difficulty? Why is the mobe front-to-front, attempted only three times at the tournament, valued the same as the standard mobe, which was performed over 100 times?

Take the half cab (BFLF) as another example. Worth 550 points, it was performed just once for every three half twists (BFLB), valued at 750. While it may be true that landing in the back is more difficult than taking off in the back, does that justify a 200-point gap? If so, why are half twists so common—and half cabs so rare?

Innovation Without Reward

In early 2024, the IWWF approved four new flips, including Clarens Lavau’s “Super Half Twist” and Poland’s “UFO.” But even with official approval, no one expects them to appear in major tournaments.

Poland’s “Matrix”—a frontflip with a ski-line 540 from the back position—was awarded 950 points. That’s just 150 more than a basic frontflip, and identical in value to the established super-mobe-five.

“There’s a point where you go, well, the slam it takes to learn this trick is just not going to be worth the extra 50 points,” said Poland. “I was trying to do a super-mobe-seven—a backflip 720 over the rope—but there’s not much point because they’ve made it very clear no trick can be worth more than 1,000 points.”

The scoring ceiling isn’t just discouraging; it’s actively stifling innovation.

“I tried three of them,” Poland added, “and they were the worst crashes of my life. I was like, ‘I’m never gonna try that again.’”

Without a meaningful scoring incentive, tricks like the Matrix may never make it into competition. Even Poland, one of the sport’s most creative skiers, is reconsidering the cost.

“You’re limiting creativity and progression,” said Winter. “Do we want to see the same runs forever—just a bit faster?”

A System Stuck in Neutral

The IWWF knows the problem exists. In a memo last year, Council Chair Candido Moz urged the Tricks Working Group to bring forward point values that better reflect “true difficulty levels.”

But attempts at reform have stalled for years.

“The skiers could never agree on point values,” Moz has explained. “So IWWF never received a proposal.”

That may change this September. A restructured Tricks Working Group, which includes Poland as a member, is expected to present formal recommendations during the World Championships in Recetto.

Time for a Reset?

Poland is done waiting. “In my opinion, [the current system] is crippling trick and limiting the athletes,” he said. He plans to stay vocal in the lead-up to Recetto.

Winter sees trick skiing as the discipline with the most untapped potential. “Right now, it’s just not reaching it,” he said. “But it could.”

The current system rewards repetition and safety. A modernized score table—one that truly values difficulty and risk—could transform the sport overnight.

“You’ve got to blow it up to build it up,” said Wilson.

The World Championships run August 27–31 in Recetto, Italy. A formal review of trick point proposals is expected to take place at the IWWF Water Ski Council meeting during the event.