By Jon Roe
Zealous and zestful, Zelinka zipped down the track, zizzed past her opponents and zoomed towards the finish line, helping the University of Calgary Dinos women’s track team win the 4×400 metre relay, and their first Canadian Interuniversity Sport championship since 1991.
Jessica Zelinka is a world class athlete who has competed for the last four years here at the U of C. She started her career at the University of Western Ontario and transferred over after winning the 2001 CIS rookie-of-the-year award.
This is her fifth and final year of eligibility and at the 2007 CIS track and field championships in Montreal she has finally accomplished the one thing she couldn’t do on her own.
“It’s the Cinderella finish to my career as a university athlete,” said Zelinka from her hometown of London, Ontario, where she went to rest and recover for a week after competing in 10 events at the CIS championships. “To see our team come together, to see our team perform at the level we were at when it counted, and to see the payoff of that is something that I can’t do on my own as an individual track and field athlete. It was just amazing to be able to experience that with the team in my last year.”
Despite a career that included 17 CIS medals (13 gold, three silver, one bronze) and four CIS athlete-of-the-year awards in only four CIS championships, Zelinka was happy to get another chance at the team title after missing out on the last two years of CIS championships.
“My last CIS [in 2005] I couldn’t compete; I was injured,” said Zelinka, who also finished her high school career injured after pulling a hamstring in a hurdle heat in her final year. “I was kind of bummed about that. [I was thinking,] ‘No, this isn’t how I want to end it. I want to come back, I want to be strong. I want to do what I know I’m able to do right now, and I want to compete for the university.’”
Last year Zelinka did not compete for the U of C as she was preparing for the Commonwealth Games in Australia. The 2007 CIS championships in Montreal were a way of settling unfinished business for Zelinka.
“I have no feeling of, ‘Oh, I wish I could come back and compete one more year because I know I have something left,’” said Zelinka. “So I can leave, I can walk away. It happened. It’s done and it’s more than I could ever want.”
Now that Zelinka feels that she’s accomplished everything she wanted at the university level, she can focus on international competitions and building towards the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. She’ll be competing again at the Hypo Bank Invitational in Gotzis, Austria, and at another international competition in Arles, France, as well as the PanAmerican games in Brazil and the World Championships in Japan.
“Every competition is a new experience, and you can always develop through them,” said Zelinka. “[The CIS] is the last time I’m ever going to do that hard of a meet. The heptathlon is [only] a two day event. It’s grueling but it’s not a three day, 10 event competition. I think the CIS is a great transition for me to be able to go to Europe and compete in the heptathlon. It’s going to be a breeze after this.”