AMUSEMENT

THE MOST PRACTICED SPORT IN THE WORLD

(for which no fancy gear is needed)

BY MARTIE MAJOROS

Who hasn't stood at the edge of a lake and hunted around for the perfect stone to skip over the water? Once one person does it, everyone wants to try. Soon, it's a friendly competition to see who can get the most skips from a single stone.

This age-old pastime was cited by the ancient Roman philosopher Minucius Felix in his Octavius. He described a group of young boys at the seashore vying with one another to see who could throw stones into the sea the farthest and with the most skips. It's reported that ancient Greeks used oyster shells instead of stones. Today, Arctic peoples skip stones on ice, while Bedouins skim stones on sand.

In Scotland, the hobby is known as "ducks and drakes," with a duck being a first skip and drakes, the subsequent ones. In Russia, the sport is known as baking pancakes; in Japan, cutting water; and in Sweden, throwing a sandwich.

MEET THE COMPETITION

The popularity of stone skipping or skimming has led to international competitions, with events in Japan, Scotland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Wales. The criteria vary for each contest; some count the number of skips, while others measure the distance that a stone travels as it skims across the water. The current distance records were set in 2018 at Abernant Lake, Wales: for women, 172 feet by Switzerland's Nina Luginbuhl; for men, 400 feet by Scotland's Dougie Isaacs.

The North American Stone Skipping Association (NASSA), founded in 1989 by Jerdone Coleman McGhee, sponsors annual U.S. championship tournaments on Mackinac Island, Michigan, and in Franklin, Pennsylvania. Both contests rely on the greatest number of skips to determine a winner. McGhee's enthusiasm was inspired while walking on a beach in Spain one evening. As he

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