Innisfail native Dorien Llewellyn, 23, earned three medals in water skiing at the Pan Am Games in Lima Peru this week.

By Sheldon Spackman

Medal Success

Innisfail water skier earns three medals at Pan American Games

Aug 2, 2019 | 8:22 AM

A water skiing athlete from Innisfail is celebrating the achievement of earning three medals at the Pan American Games in Lima, Peru this week.

Dorien Llewellyn, 23, earned a gold medal in the Men’s Overall Final on Tuesday and before that, a silver medal in the Men’s Tricks Final and bronze medal in the Men’s Jump Final, both held on Monday.

Llewellyn describes the achievement as an awesome experience.

“Being a part of Team Canada and walking at the opening ceremonies, just walking through that arena with all those athletes, for me personally, it got me so excited about starting the event the next day,” he exclaims. “Then getting those three medals was awesome. But I missed out on a medal by one buoy in slalom and that was the first event of the tournament.”

Llewellyn however says earning a silver medal in Tricks at his next event was like getting a big weight off his shoulders.

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“I wanted to get that first medal, I wanted to walk away from Lima having contributed to the success of the Canadian team as a whole and the water ski team as well,” he exclaims. “Then that kind of just let me relax and really take it to everybody in the next couple of rounds. I came away with a bronze in Jump and then finished it off the next day with the perfect cap, a gold in Overall.”

After graduating with a physics degree from Rollins College in Orlando, Florida this past May, Llewellyn says his sights are now set on going to Malaysia where he’ll compete at the IWWF World Waterski Championships Aug 13-18 with the hopes of earning another gold medal.

“Now I’m really looking forward to focusing on skiing for the immediate future and kind of for the first time in my life, being able to put skiing at the forefront of what I’m doing every single day,” says Llewellyn. “I’m really excited to see what this next year can bring for my skiing.”

Llewellyn points-out though how proud he is of the Canadian Water Ski team as a whole, which set a record of 10 medal wins at the Pan American Games.

“The whole idea of Overall skiing is the reason why we were able to get that many medals,” explains Llewellyn.

“Because Whitney McClintock-Rini and Paige Rini as well, all three of us because of the time and effort that we put in to not only be good at one event but also to be good at all three events and potentially get another medal in Overall as well, that’s the reason we were able to break that record and came away from the tournament with the highest total medal count of any of the teams at the Games in waterskiing.”