Carolina Jump Ropers spend FWOC in Hong Kong

The Carolina men's basketball team can confidently say they ran the NCAA, but members of the Carolina Jump Rope Club took their routine to the world stage — traveling first to Florida and then to Hong Kong and walking away champions.

This past summer two members of Carolina Jump Rope Club participated in the World Jump Rope Federation World Championship in Florida, a competition featuring the most well-known and most talented jumpers in the world. 

Graham Booth and Noah Mancuso, a sophomore and junior at UNC respectively, performed alongside Tori Boggs, a recent graduate of The Ohio State University. 

Decked out in their Carolina gear, Booth and Mancuso finished in the top three among all competitors in double dutch speed and single rope freestyle in Florida. 

Following a strong performance at the World Jump Rope Championship, the three jumpers were asked to travel across the world to perform again.

“We got an email from the American Jump Rope Federation asking if we’d be interested in representing them at the Asia-Pacific Championships,” Mancuso said. 

The competition, held in Hong Kong, led to a less traditional first week of classes for Mancuso and Booth. The two UNC students earned a second place finish in the double dutch speed event, and Booth won a first-place medal for the single rope pair freestyle event. 

“We were not there just to win; a lot of our motive was to further the sport as a collegiate sport and represent as well as we could,” Booth said.

Growing up in West Virginia, the three jumpers have trained together since childhood. 

“The three of us have very similar jump-rope styles,” Boggs said. “And there’s that chemistry there that’s very hard to find between jumpers.”

Boggs was originally on the same team as Mancuso when they were kids, and they asked Booth to join their team once they realized his style and advanced knowledge of the sport was compatible with their vibe. 

“Noah’s a really creative guy,” Boggs said. “I loved the amount of creativity he put into the sport. He was coming up with some really unique things that a lot of other people weren’t creating.”

The work of the Carolina Jump Rope Club extends beyond training its members for competition. 

“Graham and I were invited to teach camps in Munich, Germany and Prague, Czech Republic,” Mancuso said. 

They said the real driving force behind the Carolina Jump Rope Club is delivering clinics to kids and expanding the reach of the sport.

With the help of Boggs, the UNC students created an event called U Jump Summit, a week-long extravaganza where colleges with jump-rope organizations convene at Ohio State to revel in their love of jump-rope and competition. 

“It invites all college teams in the country to come compete, and share the sport together, grow the sport together and make a huge week out of jump-rope,” Boggs said. 

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