Last place to World Champion: Winter Garden adaptive water skier sets record at Worlds

Winter Garden resident Jana Shelfer rose above the water on her skis in November 2025 at Worlds in Australia with confidence.

The Team USA athlete knew her tricks combined were enough to produce a record-breaking score. All that was left was to successfully complete the track. 

And she did it to perfection. 

Shelfer returned to the dock with tears streaming down her face and uncontainable excitement. Her husband, Jason Shelfer, met her with a gleaming smile and tears of his own. 

They celebrated as if she won Worlds, before knowing it was the reality. 

Jana Shelfer was crowned the champion. She took home three individual gold medals and one Team USA gold medal, and set a new world record of 1,340 points in seated tricks. 

When Jana Shelfer discovered she won, more tears flowed. They still flow to this day. 

She thanked everyone, from her training partners to her husband. Without their role in her training sessions, her victory would have never been possible.

“The emotion was overwhelming,” Jana Shelfer said. “It was all the good emotions all at once coming out. It was joy, it was pride. I was so elated and it all came out at once.” 

The accomplishment reminded Jana Shelfer of who she’s always been: a champion. 

She took home gold in 2004 as a Paralympian wheelchair basketball player after becoming paralyzed in a car accident as a freshman in high school years earlier. In 2025, she celebrated being inducted into the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Hall of Fame. 

“I think my 20-year-old self would be really proud of my 50-year-old self,” Jana Shelfer said. 

The basketball champion retired from the sport after 2004 and pursued a career in radio, creating the “Living Lucky” podcast with Jason Shelfer in 2021, but her natural calling for competition drew her back into athletics. 

That, and Jason Shelfer bought a boat.

THE BEGINNING

Jason Shelfer made the purchase in 2012, and the couple quickly took on the boating lifestyle. It was relaxing, but Jana Shelfer wanted them to find a way to stay active, too. They decided to take on waterskiing. 

After using Google as a tool, they stumbled upon their soon-to-be coach — Frank from France — as they call him. Frank hardly spoke English. The Shelfers were his first clients, and he knew nothing about adaptive skiing. 

He had to learn adaptive skiing to accommodate Jana Shelfer’s needs. 

“I look back at that time, and I think we were meant to find each other, because it was a mutually beneficial relationship,” Jana Shelfer said. 

They helped Frank learn English, and he helped them ski all during the early hours of the morning. With the morning dew glistening on the plants, the Shelfers put on their wetsuits and listening ears and set off into the cold darkness to learn the ways of the water. Within a year, they no longer needed an instructor. 

Then Jason Shelfer bought a ski boat, which produced a flatter wake. Jana Shelfer bought a smaller ski that allowed her to move through the water with more grace. They built a house on a lake in Winter Garden, and rather than dedicating a whole day to taking the boat out, the water became their backyard. 

They began water skiing a few times each year until Jana Shelfer entered her first competition. 

LAST PLACE

Jana Shelfer was scrolling online on a Wednesday afternoon in September 2024, when she stumbled across the adaptive waterski competition in Auburndale. Her first thought was simple, “Let’s go watch.” But then a second thought flashed through her competitive-natured mind, “Why don’t we just enter?” 

The catch: The event was scheduled for that Saturday, and she never had skied competitively.

Jana Shelfer sprung into action. All she had to do was complete the course to qualify for competition. At the slowest speed possible, 18 mph, and with the longest rope allowed, she attempted it. It wasn’t pretty or smooth, but she cleared every buoy. 

As Jana Shelfer sat on the dock, she began watching her competition cruise by practicing spinning in tight circles, sliding sideways and hopping wakes — they were trick skiing.

“I want to do that,” she said. 

But she didn’t have the proper ski. She and Jason Shelfer drilled holes into one of his wakeboards, attached a cage and spent three hours trying to get Jana Shelfer on top of the water. They failed but entered the trick competition, anyway. 

On competition day, she had two chances to get out of the water. The first pull failed.

“On the second time I could hear people on the dock, ‘Does she need help? Does someone need to jump in and help her?’” Jana Shelfer said. “I felt so embarrassed. And then the second time, I got up on top of the water, and I was so excited. … Once I passed the green buoy, the judge in the boat said start your tricks. I didn’t have any tricks. My trick was just doing it.” 

Photo by Chris Filshie | The Finley and District Camera Club

Slowly, she turned toward the audience and waved with a bright smile gleaming across her face. When she did that, her ski turned 90 degrees, which she later learned is a side slide. Her wave earned her 40 points and last place. 

From that moment, she became focused on becoming a world champion. She began skiing twice a day — before she put her makeup on and after it was taken off. 

“It became a part of who we are,” Jana Shelfer said. 

They traveled to six training camps, seven competitions, spending weeks at a time in West Palm Beach. World-class able-bodied and adaptive skiers from California, Tennessee and Georgia came to Winter Garden to help. 

Their own home became a hub for training camps. It was perfect. The house was designed with door frames that accommodate wheelchairs, and the dock was lined with hand rails to get into the water. 

FIRST PLACE

Traveling to competitions opened Jana Shelfer’s eyes to a new trick: jump-skiing. It terrified her. The idea of skiing directly at a 5-foot ramp at 26 mph felt reckless and unnecessary. 

But curiosity crept in. 

Jana Shelfer strapped on her helmet, put in her mouth guard and prepared. As the boat took off she met eyes with the ramp slowly closing in, telling herself, “This is stupid.” 

Then she hit the ramp. 

“This is what birds feel like,” she said of jump-skiing. “Time slows down, and there’s just this peacefulness and then you land and you think, ‘I want to do this again.’” 

She fell in love with jumping. The thrill and excitement couldn’t be beat and it’s what changed everything for her competition numbers. 

Jana Shelfer slowly climbed up the water-skiing ranks but hadn’t won first place yet. She qualified for Worlds in Australia in November 2025 to represent Team USA in four days of competition. 

On the dock she had two voices: one with doubt and the other calm and steady. 

She listened to the calm. 

“I had already practiced, and I had already visualized this 100 times in my mind,” Jana Shelfer said. “Today is the day I’m going to see what I see in my mind.” 

Jason Shelfer said without the jump, Jana Shelfer wouldn’t have become the overall champion.

“It’s this ultimate feeling of accomplishment,” Jason Shelfer said. “You know what you’ve invested financially, time-wise, the community that’s come into it. It’s not only us; it’s been a team.”

Her accomplishments earned her recognition as the 2025 International Disabled Athlete of the Year and USA Adaptive Water Ski and Wake Sports Athlete of the Year. She will be honored at the National Awards Banquet taking place Saturday, Jan. 31. 

Hearing the title said aloud made Jana Shelfer laugh. She never could’ve imagined this is the path her life would take. It still shocks her. She hasn’t fully grasped that this is her reality, but she feels an immense sense of pride. 

“We created an outcome that was inevitable,” Jason Shelfer said.