“I always was a water baby.”

Parks Bonifay set his first world record at the age of six months, and he’s been making history ever since. Considered by many to be the world’s greatest wakeboarding freerider, Bonifay won the X Games when he was 14 years old, and since then he has dominated at events from the Pro Tour, where he’s a four-time champion, to the Gravity Games.

WAKEBOARDING

Known for combining flawless old-school technique with radical, twenty-first-century creativity, Bonifay just keeps getting better and better. And with his fearless exploration into the uncharted frontiers of big-surf ocean wakeboarding, he’s leading the progression of his sport.

DOUBLE OR NOTHING

Now in his 20s, Bonifay is already a seasoned veteran whose name is permanently fused with wakeboarding. The level of respect he’s earned from the industry and his peers allowed him to create his own wakeboarding event, “The Double or Nothing”.

 

“I wanted to create a comp with the perfect format so people would go all out instead of riding conservatively or sandbagging to get second place,” Bonifay says. Riders get to choose their own driver and are given 20 minutes to compete for first place in Biggest Air and Biggest Trick—and Bonifay made sure there is no second place. Riders don’t know the location until the day of the event and then have a three-day window to wait for the best weather. “It just makes it more interesting and keeps it quiet so it makes it an event for the riders, not the public.”

ONCE A WATER BABY …

Bonifay grew up in a water sports playground, Lake Alfred, Florida. Even so, he took to the wake earlier than most: before he could walk, his dad strapped the 2 month old to a pair of trainer skis, and Bonifay made the Guinness Book of World Records as youngest waterskier. “I always was a water baby,” he laughs.

 

The Bonifay phenomenon truly came to the forefront in 1996. Still only 14, Bonifay astonished the wakeboarding community when he made his first visit to the X Games and demolished the field to capture the Freeride gold medal. And just to prove it wasn’t a fluke, that same year he took the Junior Masters Championship and the Pro Tour Wakeboard Championship. Notice was served, and the medals just kept piling up: another Pro Wakeboarding title in 1998, more X Games gold and the Masters crown; Board Stock wins for two years running, a couple of Sea World Big Air victories, a pair of Gravity Games titles – and in 2001, just about everything, including the Pro Tour Season Championship, National Championship, and Vans Triple Crown Championship.