Some athletes are born “naturals.” Joel McClintock is such an athlete. As a toddler, Joel took to the water almost as naturally as a duck.  Nothing strange about it, a true water baby he learned to water ski when he was four years old – that’s when he first “got wet,” as he puts it – at his family’s summer camp at Lake Puslinch. It didn’t come much of a surprise that at a tender age of eight, Joel was already a seasoned competitor in the junior ranks, pitting his talent and fast-developing skills against boys five or six years his senior. It didn’t surprise many that as an eight-year-old he won his first significant regional water ski title. It was expected of Joel to win.

     It may have surprised a few — but again, not too many — when his talent and skills carried him to the very zenith of his sport when he was 18, Joel became world water ski champion in 1979. What made the feat even more memorable was that he won before an enthusiastic and supportive home crowd at Long Pond on Centre Island in Toronto. Joel remembers it well. “I wasn’t necessarily a specialist in any one event,” he says. He didn’t have to be, a solid all-round effort — he finished runner-up in jump, fourth in tricks and sixth in slalom — ensured him of the highest place on the medal podium in the overall category. “It really was a thrill to win it, even more so to do it in front of my friends, family and the home crowd,” he says. “It was so much more exciting through the whole process.”

     Winning the world championship stands out as one of the more memorable moments of an outstanding athletic career — and so does the celebration party his friends arranged a few months later after the end of the water ski season. Teammates and fellow competitors gathered from across the country to pay tribute to the kid from Streetsville who grew up to be king of his sport.

     Joel’s whole career was dotted with other memorable moments, too many to remember. There was the Pan-American Games overall triumph in Valencia, Venezuela, in 1980. And a string of Canadian national championships, a “whole bunch of them, maybe 20,” he says. Joel was a member of the Canadian national water ski team for nine years between 1977 and 1985. After he retired from active competition, Joel moved to Florida to work with “an extended water ski community” at Lago de Sol in Fort Worth and in Palm Beach. He also coached Canada’s water ski team to the world championship title in 1991 and 1993 marking the first time any team unseated the U.S. He rates the milestones “very exciting.”Joel is one of four water ski champions from the McClintock family – his sister, Judy is twice ladies world title holder and brothers Jim and Jack have both fared well on the Canadian scene.

     His achievements were recognized when he was chosen Canada’s Male Athlete of the Year for ’79, the same year he was selected Mississauga’s Male Amateur Athlete of the Year. In 1984, McClintock was inducted into the Canadian Amateur Sports Hall of Fame. The Mississauga Sports Hall of Fame opened its door for Joel for 1996.