Blake Lamontagne never imagined he'd become a world class athlete. At least not in water skiing and especially not after he joined the sport when he was 24 years old after a friend practically dragged him to a body of water to try the sport out.
“It was an opportunity, so it was something I decided to take and it's changed my life since,” he said.
Lamontagne only tried water skiing once before he became paraplegic from a car accident when he was 16 years old. The now 32-year-old says he wasn't given much hope from doctors and was in a deep depression before he sat down in the adaptive water skiing chair.
“I felt like I didn’t have a whole lot going on for me,” Lamontagne said. “As soon as I got on the water I realized that I got to leave my disability at the dock. I got to go and be me. You saw me for who I was. There was no wheelchair and it just made me feel alive again,” Lamontagne said.
The Regina-based water skier is in Saskatoon for the Western Canadian Waterski Championships happening at the Saskatoon Water Ski Club all weekend long.
He says being on the water makes sense as the peace and tranquility allow him to compete at his highest level.
"It was something for me to wake up for every morning,” he said of the sport. “There's just something about the spray of the water hitting you. As soon as I got on a trick ski it, for whatever reason, came really natural for me and it was literally like I was dancing on the water. It was something no other activity could provide me with."
Lamontagne has been racking up the accolades in recent years. He's a four-time national champion, and in his first world championships he finished near the bottom of the standings. Two years later, he was the first overall in his category.
Saskatoon Waterski Club president Jim Clunie participated in his first westerns in 1981 and has stayed close to the clubhouse ever since. He’s proud to see skiers like Lamontagne write a new chapter against other competitors from B.C., Alberta, Saskatchean and Manitoba.
The weekend also features skiers as young as seven and as old as 70. Introducing the sport and being able to nurture that love for decades comes with the territory for Clunie.
“It's no different than any other type of amateur sport. You give back, but you don't really give back because you love it,” he said. “We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t want to be.”
Tori Stolte is a young water skier competing in their first Western competition who have designs to keep competing for years to come.
“Just loving the water, it’s really fun,” Stolte said. “Spending time with your friends and being able to cheer them on.”
With the club celebrating its 50th anniversary this summer, Clunie sees no reason Saskatoon can't be the host of many more events like this in the future, and the start of many stories like Lamontagne’s.
“I don’t look at it as giving back. I just want to be around it,” Clunie said.
Post a Comment