WEST CARLETON – Special Olympian Darryl Clark is ending his competitive season on top earning a gold, silver and bronze at the 2019 Canoe Kayak Sprint National Championships in Regina.

Nearly 1,000 participants include National, Olympic, Paralympic and Special Olympic team athletes and upcoming paddlers competing in age group categories participated in the event that ran the last week of August in to September.

Darryl, 33, is an Arnprior resident but has been an Arnprior Special Olympics athlete for more than 15 years. He lives independently in town but heads to his parents’ Gail and Lorne Clark home in West Carleton on weekends.

For the past five years he has kayaked every Monday evening during the summer at the Carleton Place Canoe Kayak Club in the Paddle All division.

“He is a strong paddler as he’s paddled canoes and kayaks since he was 10 years old,” his mom Gail told West Carleton Online. “He was just at the 2019 Canoe Kayak Sprint National Championships in Regina with his team from Carleton Place. The paddlers were called Special Olympians, but I’m not sure on the relationship between Kayak Canada and Special Olympics Canada.”

On Day 4, Darryl won gold in the Unified K-2 200 M. 

“This was the first national race of any Canadian sport with an unified, integrated team, one person with intellectual disabilities and the other team mate main stream,” Gail said. 

He finished the race wit ha time of 2:13. Darryl also won silver in the Tourist Class K-1 200 M and bronze in the Men’s Open K-1 200 M.

All of the races are on the Canoe Kayak Canada YouTube channel, https://www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions.