2022 - French Kids and the Wind Benders

Competitors at the World Boomerang Championships in 2022 in Bordeaux, France

Fast Catch

Trick Catch

Accuracy

Australian Round

Endurance

Maximum Time Aloft

First, much respect to the ancient creators of the boomerang, by the Australian Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders.

Sam’s parents met in Labasa, Fiji Islands in the 1970s. Sam’s dad, Gerald, was a Peace Corps volunteer, an American of French Canadian descent, who taught math at a local secondary school. Sam’s mom Vilimaina, an indigenous Fijian, was the oldest child of Sakeo Nakale, who built a bure for Gerald in Wailevu village where he lived among the Fijians and learned their culture. They were married in Fiji and then traveled back to Fall River, Massachusetts.

In 1991, Sam learned how to make boomerangs from the book “Boomerang. How to Throw, Catch and Make it” by Benjamin Ruhe and Eric Darnell. He met Erik Fields who introduced competition and the worldwide boomerang community. In 1992, Sam competed in his first boomerang tournament at the age of 16, and left for Fiji that summer. In Fiji, Sam made and shared boomerangs his family in several villages. He returned to the USA in 1994 to throw in his second boomerang tournament in Oakland California.

In 2022, Sam took on organizing and coaching, with Jim Schramm, the first USA Youth Boomerang team named the Wind Benders. The team of four youths competed at the World Boomerang Championship in Bordeaux, France with the amazing French Kids.

Sam believes the boomerang is a modality to engage in awareness, spirituality, resilience, critical thinking and problem solving. Sam sees a huge potential for engaging youth in learning science, technology and math, health and mindfulness through the boomerang. In 2024, Sam founded the University of Boom as a way of providing this access to the everyone.

Currently ranked #10 in the US

Roundtrip Boomerangs features boomerangs designed and hand-crafted by Gregg Snouffer, a five-time world champion and head coach of the United States Boomerang Team.

A high school teacher and coach from Delaware, Ohio, Gregg Snouffer got his start in boomerangs as a five year old, when he and his older brothers read an article that included a plan on how to build a mysterious pre-historic flying weapon! The boys’ grandfather helped them build their first boomerang in his garage in Worthington, Ohio. Growing up, the brothers were fascinated with science and flight, learning to build kites, gliders, hydrogen balloons and anything else that flew! A family vacation to the Smithsonian’s annual boomerang fling in Washington DC during high school turned into a lifetime hobby, as the brothers were introduced to the organizers of the modern sport and got swept up in the early years of the U.S. Boomerang Team. As a member of the team from 1986 – 2006, Gregg won five World Team Championships and two U.S. National Championships. In 2008 he was named head coach of the U.S. Team, where he coached the Americans to world championships in Rome (2010) and Brazil (2012.) Gregg also helped coach the Japanese and Brazilian teams, as well as several international champions. He learned circular breathing on the didgeridoo from an Aboriginal while on a walk-about in Australia. He also fathered and coached former U.S. Junior National Champion, Kian Snouffer when he was 14 years old. Gregg lives in Delaware, Ohio on the banks of Alum Creek, where he continues to make and sell boomerangs world wide from his barn workshop under the name Roundtrip Boomerang.

Ed Love started throwing boomerangs in the mid-80's and was part of the original Team Gel at The Evergreen State College. Since then, he has travelled broadly (including two incredible years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in West Africa, where he left his original boomerang collection), loved deeply, built a tiny coffee empire, worked for some enormous companies, and spent way too much time in graduate school. These days, he is a Professor & Department Chair of Marketing at Western Washington University. He still makes and throws boomerangs with his son in Bellingham, WA, USA.

Christian Schramm

Cam Brosnan and Seth Lemay

Rachel Smucker

Source: http://www.ifbaonline.org/308-2/ click on “Individual World Records Excel Sheet”