A robotic voice boomed through a bluetooth speaker in the school gym.
“Three, two, one.”
A tone sounded, and between two jump ropes, speed-jumped Sydney Schmidt took off. The ropes moved so quickly, they became nearly invisible. Schmidt seemed to levitate over the hardwood floor. She kept that pace for more than 30 seconds, error-free, before her foot caught a rope. She laughed with her teammates.
“I’m not warm at all,” Schmidt said. “So, my pace and my feet are probably not quite on.”
Turning the ropes were sisters Jordan and Kylee McCloney. Sydney’s own sister, Cameron, warmed up across the gym. The four women grew up jumping together. Now, they’re taking their shared sport to the world stage, competing for Team USA at the International Jump Rope Union World Championships in Japan.
Though it was just the four of them practicing in the Clinton school gym, they decided to wear their uniforms — team leader and coach Jordan’s idea.
“I can’t resist a matching outfit,” McCloney joked. “There’s just something about it.”
The sisters are longtime members of the Montana Super Skippers jump rope team. It’s the oldest of its kind in the state at 40 years running.
Jordan took over as head coach back in 2019. She’s the oldest among the sisters and has been jumping the longest — though, the others aren’t far behind. Kylee recalled when she and Sydney were too young to join their sisters, but still found themselves at practice.
“We’d be out the hallway, we’d run in, go practice some things and then run back to the gym to see what they were teaching other people,” Kylee McCloney said. “And so, after, I think, a year of us doing that, they finally let us join the team.”
The Super Skippers banded together during competitive jump rope’s formative years. The sport is relatively new — at least, in any kind of organized form. The world competition emerged only within the last 25 years or so and the American Jump Rope Federation was founded in 2018.
That doesn’t mean it’s any less sophisticated or athletic than any other sport. While the Super Skipper sisters were still learning the ropes, across the border in Idaho, professional jump rope coach Monica Foster was discovering a passion for teaching the sport. Now, she’s in charge of running the upcoming world championship tournament in Japan.
“It’s going to be a great tournament,” Foster said. “We have over 2,100 athletes that are participating, so this is the largest tournament.”
Foster said competitive jump rope events are lumped into two main categories: speed and freestyle. In speed jumping — Sydney Schmidt’s event — judges click a counting device every time the jumper’s right foot touches down.
“They jump so fast that it’s impossible to count both feet, so we count one foot hitting the ground as the rope passes underneath them,” Foster said.
Freestyle is like a fusion of jump rope and gymnastics, judged on difficulty, creativity and execution. The Super Skippers practiced one of their routines — two of the sisters turned two beaded ropes as Cameron twisted and flipped between them. She sprang into a handstand, then back to her feet, down into a splits, then back up again as the rope-turners spun.
Despite the expertise on display at the world level, Foster said one of the things she loves most about jump rope is its accessibility. It requires little equipment and is fun in groups. Recess playmates can become teammates, as can family. Foster’s own kids are now jump rope competitors, and she’s watched the Super Skipper sisters perform at tournaments for years.
“The sport of jump rope is really more like a large family, so you get to know the athletes really well as they progress,” Foster said.
For the Super Skippers, that familial feeling is literal, of course. They’re excited and honored to represent the U.S. in the world championship this year. And, if jump rope is added to the Olympics some day, all of them hope to be there — no matter how old they are, said Sydney.
“We have so many people who are going to be just, like, the most OP oldheads,” Schmidt said with a laugh, “We’ll be, like, 30-plus, and we’ll still slaughter.”
The International Jump Rope Union World Championships run the last week of July in Kawasaki, Japan.
