Water skiing is thrilling summer sport

Water skiing may have been born in the United States in the 1920s, but it didn’t make a splash internationally until the 1940s. This Australian Diary segment from 1949 captures the sport at the height of its appeal on the glassy waters of the Nepean River in NSW. 

The footage leans into both skill and spills, presenting water skiing as equal parts athletic control and spectacle. At the time, it represented modern leisure – fast, confident and designed to impress. 

The sport reached its peak when water skiing appeared as an exhibition event at the 1972 Summer Olympics. Its popularity has since waned, overtaken by surfing and wakeboarding, but here it reads as a vivid record of a moment when water skiing felt like the future of summer fun.