It’s been a long water ski season but despite the lakes well frozen over here, Jaimee Bull experienced a wave of international success in her sport recently in South America.
The grade 11 student at Chippewa Senior Secondary just captured a gold medal in slalom to give her the 2016-17 World Junior Championship which took place earlier this month in Santiago, Chile.
On top of that, she was part of the Canadian team which took the overall Team Gold as well.
“I made it to the finals which was my goal, I didn’t ski that well but coming into finals I was able to settle my nerves down a little bit and my ski felt really solid,” said Bull about the individual slalom event.
“Because I didn’t do well in prelims I was one of the first off the dock so I knew I could come out with a good score and put some pressure on the other girls. My ski felt good and it went well and everything worked out.”
Those results for the 16-year-old North Bay native are even more impressive since she’s one of the few competitors who doesn’t live in a hot climate year round.
“It’s pretty difficult for me because I live in Canada, most of my competitors live in Florida or somewhere where it’s warm most of the year,” she admits.
“So this is the longest season I have ever had. I skied at home until November 8th and I was able to go down to Florida and train near Orlando since December 10th.”
Bull had her training cut short this fall as Hurricane Matthew spoiled her plans to train in Florida this fall.
She will take a break now and play some high school sports like basketball and volleyball, and then head back down south to start training again at the end of February.
She will train in Florida until May where she will compete in a few small events leading to the Junior Masters in late May in Georgia and then it's off to the U-21 Worlds in the Ukraine later this summer.
With a budget of about $34,000 a year, Bull hopes to continue to do well in hopes of securing more sponsorship.
“Winning in Chile was awesome for me and hopefully it will provide me with some opportunities for more sponsorship so I can continue to compete at a high level in this sport,” she said.
Bull can also hope to water ski and get an education at the same time as she has been offered a scholarship by the University of Louisiana where her brother Jaret is also attending also on an athletic scholarship.
For more information on Jaimee Bull or if you are interested in sponsorship click HERE.
