Local water- skiers get in on the action
Dodd golden, Llewellyn takes silver as Canadian team wins six medals
Olds’ Ryan Dodd and Innisfail’s Jaret Llewellyn were part of a huge day for Canadian waterskiers on Thursday.
Dodd leaped 64.8 metres to capture gold in the men’s jumping event, while Llewellyn claimed the silver medal in the men’s tricks event with a score of 10950.
The medals were two of six that Canadian water- skiers won on Thursday ( two golds and four silvers) on the final day of competition on the water for the team.
Canadian teammate Whitney McClintock led the way with a gold and two silvers ( first in slalom, second in both tricks and jumping), while her older brother Jason McClintock added a silver in men’s slalom.
Dodd achieved his top distance on his first jump ( his second was 62.2 metres) and finished just 0.1m ahead of silver medallist Rodrigo Miranda of Chile.
“My whole life I’ve thrived on pressure,” Dodd said. “When I landed that jump ... I knew how far it was and it was like the weight of the world dropped off my shoulders.”
Llewellyn, who won the tricks event during the overall competition on Wednesday — en route to a silver medal — managed to top his preliminary score of 10360 by scoring 10950 points and was in the lead with just one skier left. But American Adam Pickos dropped down a score of 11110, bumping Llewellyn to the silver medal, and knocking Canadian teammate Jason McClintock off the podium.
The 44- year- old Llewellyn narrowly missed another medal in jumping — his best event — when his leap of 59.9m put him a tie with Felipe Miranda of Chile for the bronze medal. Unfortunately for the homegrown talent, the rules state that in the event of a tie, the jumper with the higher preliminary score would win the tiebreaker, which bumped Llewellyn to fourth place.
“For a medal, I don’t really like it,” Llewellyn said about the tie breaking procedure. “To go back from a previous day, I don’t think is right, regardless if it’s gold, or any
My whole life I’ve thrived on pressure. When I landed that jump ... I knew how far it was and it was like the weight of the world dropped off my shoulders.
of the medals.”
Through all four days of the water- skiing and wakeboarding events at the 2015 Pan Am Games, Canada took home four golds and five silvers.
LOCAL NOTABLES
Lethbridge’s Coby Iwaasa lost in the racquetball quarter- finals to Mexico’s Alvaro Beltran 2- 0 ( 15- 3, 15- 7) ... Canada’s women’s volleyball team, of which Sylvan Lake’s Jaime Thibeault is a member, lost the seventh- place match to Peru 3- 2 ( 22- 25, 26- 24, 17- 25, 25- 21, 15- 13).