McClintock adds to medal haul with more water wizardry,
Jaret Llewellyn will turn 45 next week and he just won two medals in Pan Am Games waterskiing, competing against the best in the world, all of them about half his age or younger.
So what’s an elder statesman doing — surviving — in a sport that should be a young person’s game?
“I’ve been lucky,” said the native of Innisfail, Alta. “At a young age, when I started, the top athletes didn’t take it as serious as they do today, so I grew up like that and that’s why I lasted so long . . . no one else has lasted as long as I have,”
Llewellyn took silver in the men’s tricks competition Thursday, and
“He was on the national team before I was born.” WHITNEY MCCLINTOCK TEAMMATE OF JARET LLEWELLYN
narrowly missed a bronze after posting the same distance as Chile’s Felipe Miranda in men’s jumping.
There’s obviously a lot more too it than luck and coming through the early days of world-class water skiing, when, as Llewellyn says, “you showed up for a competition, drank some beer, went out and competed, then went back and drank more beer.”
But Llewellyn is a Canadian sports icon, and his impact was felt by com- petitors at the Pan Am water skiing event off the banks of Ontario Place.
“He was on the national team before I was born,” said Whitney McClintock, who wrapped up a spectacular performance at the Games with a gold medal in the slalom and silvers in tricks and jumps, capping a four-medal week for the 25-year-old from Cambridge, Ont. She won the overall gold Wednesday.
“Everyone on our team, everyone competing here for Canada, Jaret’s coached them at some point in their lives. He’s someone I always look up to.”
Llewellyn and McClintock were just part of a six-medal haul for Canada on the water Thursday. Ryan Dodd won gold in men’s jumping, and Jason McClintock, Whitney’s brother, took silver in a hotly contested men’s slalom.
After his silver in tricks, Llewellyn posted a jump of 59.9 metres, exactly the same distance as Miranda. Under Pan Am guidelines, though, the tiebreaker goes to the skier who had the better results in the preliminary rounds, which handed Miranda the bronze and left Llewellyn with a bit of a bitter taste in his mouth.
“For a medal, I don’t like it as a tiebreaker . . . on the day of the competition you shouldn’t go back to the preliminaries. I don’t think its right, but that’s the rules,” said Llewellyn, who watched Miranda and brother Rodrigo take bronze and silver, just behind Dodd’s gold medal effort of 64 metres.
“I didn’t jump very well, my timing is on and off,” added Llewellyn, a former world record holder in jumps.
“I have some work to do for the world championships for sure. This is usually my strong event.”
The Canadian team gets back together again in two weeks for the Canadian championships; some will take in the Pan Am Games closing ceremony Sunday featuring rapper Kanye West, but Whitney McClintock won’t be one of them.
“It’s been a long week . . . I listen to Christian music which is way far away from rap, so no, I won’t be there. Sorry Kanye,” she said, smiling.