Local Water Ski Champion Makes World Ranking List

Ken Nelson is being inducted into the Wetaskiwin and County Sports Hall of Fame for his achievements in and contributions to the sport of waterskiing in Alberta and Canada.  Growing up on a farm near Wetaskiwin, waterskiing wasn’t even a consideration until, as a teenager, on a family trip to the US, Ken discovered waterskiing and quickly developed a passion for the sport.  He started competing at the age of twenty-six and in thirty-seven years of competing Ken won:

31 Provincial Championships
13 Western Canadian Championships
12 Canadian Championships

In 2013 he was ranked sixteenth on the International Water Ski Federations World Ranking List.  As a builder Ken’s contributions have benefitted thousands of athletes.  Ken was responsible for building and developing Shalom Park which is now recognized as a world class water ski site. He has also furthered the sport by establishing programs, serving on the Alberta Water Ski and Wakeboard Executive and various other initiatives.

Sets Six National Records and
 Ranked 1st for Nine Years

Ken started competing in waterskiing in 1971 and two years later he qualified for the Canadian Championships where he won a Bronze Medal.  During his career that continues to this day, in thirty-one Provincial Championships Ken won thirty Gold and one Bronze medal; in twenty-one Western Canadian Championships, Ken won thirteen Gold and five Bronze and at the National Level in twenty-four Championships he has twelve Gold, five Silver and four Bronze.  Ken set six National Men’s records and ranked first on the Canadian Ranking List for nine years.  In 2013, in his age group, Ken was ranked sixteenth in the world.  In 2014 in the 35+ World Water Ski Championships with 345 competitors from around the world, Ken placed twelfth out of twenty-seven skiers in the 65+ Men’s Division.  All in all an impressive competitive record.

Designs and Builds World Class Facility

In 1972 Ken visited a man-made water ski lake in California.  Seeing the facility gave Ken the idea of building such a site and thirteen years later his dream was to become a reality.  He found the ideal site for building a man-made water ski lake in Alberta, a former gravel pit adjacent to the Rabbit Hill Ski Resort near Devon and next to the North Saskatchewan River.  After local and government approvals the project was started in December of 1985 and with Ken’s background in engineering he was able to provide all the technical aspects to ensure that it would be an ideal water ski site.  Shalom Park opened in June 1986 and was the first man-made site in Canada that was designed exclusively for water skiing sports.

Over the years Shalom Park has become recognized as a world-class facility.  Competitive water skiers who have competed at the park rank it as “one of the top ten water ski sites in the world”.  It is the most prolific host site in Canada for water-skiing tournament events and from 1986 to the present has hosted six Canadian Water Ski Championships, eight Western Canadian Championships, three International Pro Competitions and one World Junior Championship.  There are nine other water skiing sites in Canada and Ken has served as a design-consultant on four of the projects.