Melnuk, McClintock golden at Canadian championships

Mississauga’s Kevin Melnuk was jumping for joy after a victorious performance at the Canadian water skiing championships Saturday at the Summerski Water Ski Club in Newmarket.
Competing in the men’s under-21 category, Melnuk placed first in jumps with a leap of 63.4 metres.
Alex Paradis of Quebec City was second with a jump of 61.9 metres, and Robbie Patterson of Deep Cove, B.C. finished third with a jump of 51.0 metres.
Meanwhile, Whitney McClintock carried on the rich heritage of her water-skiing family from Streetsville by pulling off a hat-trick yesterday  at the championships.
McClintock's acrobatics earned her top spot in the slalom, tricks and jumping events, and a clean sweep of the competitive categories.
McClintock scored a record of 8,410 points in tricks, added a 210.75 in slalom and flew 46.9 metres in jump for her third title in five years. It was her second consecutive win at the national championships.
"I haven't skied near 8,400 points in two years so this is really good," said McClintock, who opened the year strongly by taking the overall title at the under-21 world championships. She also won her first World Cup victory just last month.
She told The Globe and Mail after her competition that, "I came here with a goal to get a really nice score. I could have added more tricks and gotten a bigger score but in the preliminaries I wasn't quite on, so I didn't want to take that risk."
McClintock, of course, is the latest in a line of world class water-skiiers to emerge from a Streetsville family that has dominated the sport for more than 20 years. Her aunt Judy McClintock-Messer is a two-time world women's champion while her uncle Joel McClintock won the world title in 1991.
jstewart@mississauga.net