AJIJIC, Mexico-Aaron Rathy of Nanaimo, B.C., Whitney McClintock of Cambridge, Ont., and Karen Stevens of Morrisburg, Ont., all reached the podium on the first day of finals in water skiing and wakeboard on Saturday at the Pan Am Games.

In men's wakeboard, Andrew Adkison of the U.S., won the gold medal with 80.00 points. Rathy, the leader after Thursday's preliminaries, took the silver at 72.67 and Marcelo Giardi of Brazil was third at 65.90.

"It was awesome, I had a really fun time out there," said Rathy, 23. "I had a fall but still had a good run. I would have needed a perfect run to beat Andrew. The wake was a bit small which made it hard to get big air but it was the same for everybody."

In the overall water ski competition which had competitors combine their scores for performances in slalom, tricks and jump, Regina Jacquess of the U.S., won the gold medal in women's competition with 2,955.7 points.

McClintock took the silver at 2,809.6 and Stevens followed in third at 1,862.8.

"It was a little rough," McClintock said. "I just skied a little under in every event of what I should have skiied, and Regina skiied above and beyond everything she could have skied. She had a great day, and I had a really mediocre day. It's a lot of hard work for one medal."

In men's overall competition, Javier Julio of Argentina took the gold. Kole Magnowski of Winnipeg was eighth.

Water skiing competition ends Sunday with the finals in jump, tricks and slalom and Canada is in contention for more medals.

With over 24,000 registered members, Water Ski and Wakeboard Canada is the recognized national sports organization for towed water sports. Canada's record of success on the world stage is nothing short of impressive: 48 world champions, 124 total medals in world championships, and 27 Pan Am Games medals since 1995.

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