Whatever Happened to ...





CAROL-ANN DUTHIE
World Champion 
By Paul Jurbala



When Canada won its second World 
Team Championship in as many tries 
last year, the media didn't seem to 
care.  In Toronto, not a single new-
spaper, radio or television station 
picked up the press releases sent out 
from Water Ski Canada or the 
OWSA. But forty years ago, when 
Carol-Ann Duthie of Etobicoke won 
the World Junior Championship 
slalom, trick and overall titles, she 
was the toast of the town. 

	The '53 Worlds were held at the 
Canadian National Exhibition. It 
helped that George Duthie, the first 
president of the Canadian Water Ski 
Association and "father of organized 
water skiing in Canada", was CNE 
Sports Director. Since 1947, George 
had been bringing acts up from 
Cypress Gardens to headline at the 
waterfront show which eventually 
became "Aquarama". For 1953, 
though, George had a surprise - his 
daughter.

	Carol-Ann was only 13 when she 
competed in the second-ever Worlds 
at Cypress Gardens in 1951, taking  
bronze in the Jr. Girl's Slalom. "It was 
the year I learned to ski", she said 
later. By 1953 she was nearly unbe-
atable, taking three gold and a 
bronze (in jump). It's hard to compare 
her performances with current 
records as most rules have changed. 
To give a general idea, however, 
Carol Ann was jumping about 50 feet 
and tricking about 400 points in the 
mid-1950's. She was the first 
Canadian to do toe-turns in com-
petition.

	Canada's response to Carol-Ann's 
win was magnificent and, to 1990's 
eyes, somewhat quaint. Toronto 
Mayor Allan Lamport held a civic 
reception for her, and gave her a mat-
ching set of luggage, a watch, 
jewellery and flowers. Telegrams of 
congratulations were received from 
the Duke of Edinburgh, Ontario 
Premier Leslie Frost, and presidents 
of water ski associations around the 
world. Her every move was com-
mented on in the papers.  Invar-iably 
described as "blonde, blue-eyed 
Carol-Ann Duthie", or sometimes "the 
beautiful Carol-Ann Duthie", her high 
school graduation, offer and 
subsequent decline of a scholarship 
to a California college, and various 
competition results all made the news 
(among other things, Carol-Ann also 
won the championships of North 
America, Mexico and the United 
States). Already runner-up in the Lou 
Marsh Trophy voting for outstanding 
Canadian athlete of the year in 1952, 
by 1956 Carol-Ann was elected to the 
Canadian Amateur Athletic Hall of 
Fame.

	Everything was different in 1953. 
There was no government funding for 
sport organizations and lacking infra-
structure, sport groups put on events 
where they could.  The CNE was a 
natural focus for amateur sport of all 
kinds, and national 
championships or major competitions 
for track and field, cycling, water 
skiing, darts and softball were all part 
of the fair. And attitudes were 
different: Torontonians were proud of 
a winner, even if the sport wasn't "big 
league". Newspapers were certainly 
different - George MacFarlane of the 
Globe and Mail covered the '53 
Worlds by writing about the bathing 
suits of the female competitors under 
the title "Gorgeous Swiss Creature, 
Italian Princess Grace CNE 
Waterskiing Scene". Try that today!

	Today Carol-Ann (now MacDonald) 
still lives in her native Etobicoke with 
her husband Don, a veterinarian. 
Their three children, now in their early 
twenties, never took to skiing the way 
she did. Carol-Ann left competitive 
skiing in the early 1960's to become a 
sec-
con't pg. 22