Jaret Llewelleyn still competes in all three water skiing disciplines and has won nine world championships, set 11 world records and has 117 victories on the pro tour.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
He is an eight-time Pan American Games gold medalist and arguably the greatest water skier in history. But now, two weeks shy of his 45th birthday and competing in a record fifth Pan Am Games, Jaret Llewellyn knows the odds are long that he will finish in the winner's circle again.
In a sport in which the Canadian medal threats – the brother/sister team of Jason and Ingrid McClintock, plus Ryan Dodd of Olds, Alta. – are almost two decades his junior and were all mentored by him at some stage of their development, Llewellyn is competing for the most elemental of reasons: just because he can.
"I'm not trying to take the young kids' spots, but you know what?" Llewellyn said. "It's better to make all the kids fight for it. It's funny because Whitney and Jason grew up with me – we all live in Florida. Ryan Dodd's father and my father taught me, then I taught Ryan and now all four of us are on the team together. It's so cool. I'm thinking, 'This is awesome.'"
Llewellyn, who is from Innisfail, Alta., but now lives and trains in West Palm Beach, Fla., has had extraordinary longevity in a sport that puts a tremendous amount of strain on the knees, hips and shoulders. Water skiers compete in three individual events – slalom, tricks and jumps – and nowadays, some members of the younger generation tend to specialize in just one.
Pan Am Games medal standings, updated daily
But Llewellyn still competes in all three disciplines and, in his career, has nine won world championships, set 11 world records and has 117 victories on the pro tour. He also served as Canada's flag bearer at the 2003 Pan Am Games in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
According to Llewellyn, the secret to his lasting success was being relatively injury-free until the age of 39. The setbacks began at the 2009 world championships in Calgary, where – thanks to a twisted ankle – he entered the tournament coming off a layoff and didn't do as well as expected.
"Everybody thought I was going to retire then," Llewellyn said. "I went into the event a little cold and came second and didn't really want to leave on that note.
"Then they announced the Pan Am Games were coming to Canada and I thought, 'Good. I feel great. I can make another five years.' Then – boom, boom, boom – one injury after another.
"I've basically been in and out for four years, and to get the ball rolling again this time took me way longer than I thought. Coming into this event, I'm a little bit not there. I hope that with my experience in tournaments, it comes back relatively quickly."
The first of four days of water skiing competition begins Monday on the Ontario Place West channel, where conditions can vary wildly, depending upon how hard the wind is blowing in off Lake Ontario. Water skiing has been part of the Pan Am Games since 1995, but thus far, it hasn't been included in the Olympics. Considering how popular all the new action snow sports are in the Winter Games, it's logical to think spectator-friendly (and sold-out) water skiing would also be a huge hit in the Summer Games.
The International Olympic Committee briefly flirted with the idea before the 2004 Summer Games in Athens, where host country Greece nominated water skiing for inclusion. However, it never went forward.
Nowadays, most of the expansion that occurs in the Summer Games comes from adding new events to sports already in the Games, a source of frustration to Llewellyn, who believes improvements in technology have answered most of the technical objections to water skiing raised by the IOC.
Getting so close to Olympic inclusion a decade ago and then having that door slammed shut was "a huge disappointment," said Llewellyn, who noted how valuable those Olympic rings can be to an athlete looking for a sponsor.
"When you talk about that with a company, they'll say, 'Oh, you're an Olympic hopeful?' I've been all over the world and carried the flag and it's been an absolute honour, but there are a lot of sports out there that struggle unless they have Olympics tied to it. It's too bad it's like that because there are a lot of great athletes.
"Water skiing would be a great Olympic event. We have cruise control now on the boats; the drivers just steer. Cable skiing has a great element too it because it eliminates the boat. We have guided laser systems. We have every technology they would need. There is no downside. That's old-school thinking and they need to move forward from that.
"The problem around the Olympics is, it's all internal. They just expand within themselves. You don't ask Tiger Woods to do putt-putt golf on the side. He golfs and that's what he does, and we ski and that's what we do. The vision of the Olympics should be to bring in sports that are unique."
Unhappily, there are no million-dollar contracts in water skiing.
"We do have a pro circuit but only if you're in the top three are you doing okay and if you're in the top five, you're breaking even. It's only a handful of us that can call ourselves professionals. I do it full time; and I coach and I work with sponsors, but you have to do all of that. I could be a better athlete if I could have backed off from some of those other things and trained the way Olympians can. That's why I wish we were tagged to the Olympics – because I believe I could have been a better athlete.
"But," he said, after a lengthy mischievous pause, "I don't know if I would have had any more fun."
And having fun is the reason Llewellyn sticks with it – that and the chance to possibly compete with his son, Darien, in a world championship once before he retires. In the meantime, the 2015 Pan Am Games complete the circle for Llewellyn, whose first competition was 16 years ago in Winnipeg, when he was in his prime.
This time around, he says, "it's more about being here and enjoying the experience. Before, it was about the gold medals. I've done that. I want to ski well. I don't want to embarrass myself. But it's going to be great – competing with these kids, how well they're skiing. Our team is really strong coming up – and we're young."
Some anyway.
Countries are sorted by most gold medals