Tim Casinelli bodysurfs at the Bend Whitewater Park on Wednesday.

It seems Tim Casinelli would be at a severe disadvantage in a bodysurfing contest, as he lives about four hours from the ocean.

But Bend’s Casinelli, 54, won his record ninth grand title at the 44th World Bodysurfing Championships in Oceanside, California, last weekend.

He trained all summer at the Bend Whitewater Park on the Deschutes River, perfecting his technique to stay atop the wave and perform numerous tricks and spins. Wednesday at the park, he was surrounded by kayakers as he rode the wave over and over with nothing but a pair of swim fins on his feet to help him ride and kick out of the wave.

“Here, it’s harder than in the ocean,” said Casinelli, breathing hard while his wetsuit dripped water after the bodysurfing session. “I kind of have an advantage training here because it’s harder. So when I get to the ocean, it’s kind of like having a jet engine on me, because everything is pushing from behind you. Here it’s all coming at you, and if you don’t get in the right spot of the whitewater, you’re getting washed downriver.”

Casinelli trains on the wave farthest downstream at the Bend Whitewater Park, the one used by kayakers and not by board surfers, who ride the wave farther upstream. The white wash in the kayakers’ wave, he explained, pushes against him so he does not get forced downriver.

Casinelli, who grew up in Southern California and is also an avid board surfer, calls bodysurfing “pretty much as close as you can get to nature, in any sport. You’re submersed in the wave.”

In the world championships, bodysurfers are judged on how long they stay on the face of a wave, the size of the wave, and the maneuvers they are able to perform while on the wave.

They compete in 15-minute heats, catching as many waves as possible in that amount of time. They are judged on each wave, and their top three scores count. About 300 bodysurfers competed this past weekend at worlds.

After winning the 45-54 age group, Casinelli competed against all the age-group winners for the title of “grand champion,” which he has now won nine times.

“A lot of it comes down to the waves you get, just like any surf contest,” Casinelli said. “If I didn’t get the best waves on Sunday, someone else was gonna beat me.”

The general manager at the Deschutes Brewery pub in Bend, Casinelli and his wife, Kim, and their now 11-year-old daughter Laila, moved to Bend from San Diego eight years ago. But he makes the trip south every August for the world championships.

He won his first world title when he was just 15 years old, and he has competed in nearly every world championship since.

Growing up in Leucadia, California, just north of San Diego, Casinelli recalled that when he was 7 he told his father that he wanted a surfboard. His dad was an ex-lifeguard, and he told his son that once he was able to swim past the breakers and get himself back to the beach safely — by bodysurfing — he could have a surfboard.

Casinelli competed in surfing and bodysurfing throughout junior high, high school and college.

Most bodysurfers, including Casinelli, use swim fins to help them in the water. He recommends beginners start small, practicing in the white wash of a wave, before working their way out to the unbroken face of the wave.

Casinelli tells beginners to try to be like a stone getting skipped across the surface of the water.

“That way you don’t have to worry about hitting the bottom,” he said, “because that’s how you can get injured.”

He said he trained about four days per week at the Bend Whitewater Park leading up to the world championships, often going with Laila, who is an avid boogie boarder.

“It makes me more fit, too, because I’ll catch a wave, and then I’ll swim against the current for a while, and then I’ll catch another wave, and then swim some more,” Casinelli said. “Swimming against the eddy kind of simulates swimming in the ocean.”

Different tricks include a “dolphin re-entry” and one that Casinelli’s friend named “seagull in a blender.”

“It’s a belly spin like a surfer does a 360, but it’s a lot harder without a board,” Casinelli said. “Getting tubed is the best thing you can do in any kind of surfing, and you can do that as well. I got a couple of those in the competition.”

Casinelli said he has seen only one other person bodysurfing at the whitewater park, and he was using a kickboard. One reason that surfing with a board is more popular is simply because it’s easier, Casinelli noted.

“You generate more speed and you have more buoyancy,” he said of board surfing. “It’s less physically taxing. That being said, you’re closer to nature and you’re part of the ocean when you’re bodysurfing.”