Summer is generally a busy season for Blake Lamontagne.
The Competitive Adaptive Water Skier (who is originally from Wawota) says that this was certainly the case this past summer. However, Lamontagne notes that the 2023 season also provided him with an opportunity to compete in the15th World Disability Water Ski Championships – something which is not available every year.
“I compete in several competitions during a season. For example, this summer, I skied a Provincial Tournament in Calgary that I’d been invited to. Then I went to Westerns in Abbottsford and Nationals at Shalom Park in Edmonton,” said Lamontagne. “But I’m only able to compete in the World Championships every two years. So, as soon as I was done skiing those other competitions, I went to California and began to train for the World Disabled Water Ski Championships.”
Although this is not that first time that Lamontagne has taken part in the World Championships, during this year’s competition he was able to achieve a longstanding goal.
“This is the third World Championship that I’ve been in. It was held at Shortline Lake in Elk Grove California with about fifty, very decorated world class athletes from different countries including the US, Australia, Norway, the Netherlands, Ireland, France and Italy taking part.
“I was competing in the Trick, Shalom, and Jump Categories. My Shalom event didn’t go as well as I’d hoped that it would. In the Jump event I skied well enough to make it to the finals…but didn’t go beyond that.
“But my Trick event went amazingly well. During the preliminary round, I went out and broke a World Record. (The previous record had been 1400 points in that competition and beat that by a trick to score 1440 points.”
“Breaking a World Record has been a goal of mine for a long time. So, this meant that all of the training that I ‘ve put in finally paid off.”
As well as reaching one of his personal milestones, Lamontagne says that he was happy to be part of reaching a goal for Team Canada at the competition.
“This was a great way to end my season. I had some great coaches and teammates with me at the World Championship this year. And this ended up being a great experience because Team Canada won the Silver Medal. That’s the first medal that Canada has ever won as a team in Adaptive Waterskiing.”
With this achievement, Lamontagne says that he will now be focused on pushing past the benchmark that he has just set.
“My goal now is to break that record again. So, I was in the gym training the day after I came back home. I’ve now gotten a taste of what I’m after. When I compete in the next World Championship, I want to ski in all three of the events that I compete in – the way that I’m capable of skiing. I want to place at the podium in all three events. And I want to come out with the best overall score at the end of the day too. My next chance to do that will be in 2025. So, until then, I’ll be training.”
