With about 400 skiers from throughout Canada and some from the US heading to Whitehorse for the Haywood Ski Nationals in March, it’s impossible for Whitehorse Cross Country Ski Club executives to organize a race without considering it preparation for the national event.
Case in point: The Yukon Cross-Country Championship classic technique races Saturday on the Mt. McIntyre trails.
“We always get a little bit rusty over the summer, so it’s a good time to both fine tune our processes and some of the really tricky stuff we get to with big races like the nationals, like how to set up our stadium properly,” said Claude Chabot, the event’s technical delegate. “We’re going to have probably 400 skiers at nationals, so the actual flow of skiers through the stadium can be tricky.
“This was a good chance to experiment combining new equipment, stadium layouts for the specific race format and see how it all fits.”
Not only was the event good preparation for volunteer staff, and another opportunity to make sure the new timing equipment purchased over the summer was working properly, the races also premiered the 7.5-kilometre course to be used at the nationals.
“We just wanted to see how that would ski,” said Chabot. “When it’s on paper and when you’re walking it in the summer with your GPS it looks great, but you want to see how the corners work and that sort of thing.
“So that worked quite well for us; we had good feedback.”
The Yukon championships will wrap up with the free technique events this Saturday.
Results
Open male (15 kilometre)
1st Nansen Murray - 51:38.5
2nd David Gonda - 53:20.6
3rd Marcus Waterreus - 54:16.0
4th Jonathan Kerr - 57:05.3
5th Bill Parry - 57:23.8
6th Scott Williams - 1:01:29
7th Craig Beatty - 1:02:26.5
8th Bill Greer - 1:02:39.1
9th Mike Gladish - 1:02:40.7
10th Scott Gilbert - 1:02:47.0
11th Derrick Hynes - 1:04:13.5
12th Bob Sagar - 1:08:05.4
DNF Jeff Lister
Open women (10 kilometre)
1st Carolyn Coombs - 41:26.7
2nd Ann Bowen - 47:44.5
DNS Sara Nielsen
Junior male (15 kilometre)
1st Knute Johnsgaard - 47:52.9
2nd Jeff Wood - 48:18.2
DNS Kurt Behnsen
Junior female (10 kilometre)
1st Janelle Greer - 34:01.4
2nd Dahria Beatty - 34:06.0
3rd Heide Brook - 34:19.2
DNF Kendra Murray
Juvenile male (7.5 kilometre)
1st Fabian Brook - 26:30.6
2nd Izal Baril-Blouin - 28:11.4
3rd Trevor Bray - 31:28.9
DNS Reid Seal
Juvenile female (5 kilometre)
1st Katie Peters - 17:36.0
2nd Holly Bull - 18:26.3
3rd Nesha Wright - 18:44.5
4th Adrienne Hynes - 19:42.4
5th Nahanni Sagar - 21:20.9
6th Moya Painter - 22:59.3
DNS Emily Wilson
Midget male (5 kilometre)
1st Caelan McLean - 19:07.6
2nd Marcus Deuling - 20:11.2
3rd Mac Prawdzik - 21:58.5
Midget female (5 kilometre)
1st Morgan Paul - 20:33.8
2nd Kassi Wright - 21:15.1
3rd Pia Blake - 21:48.4
4th Eliza Paul - 22:11.0
5th Natalie Hynes - 22:16.3
6th Alexis Gee - 23:29.5
7th Jamie McLeish - 25:50.7
8th Solstice Sarin-Toews - 27:27.5
9th Jessica Wilson - 27:48.4
10th Heather Thomson - 29:28.1
DNS Anna Janowicz
DNS Cambria Fuerstner
DNS Zoe Painter
Contact Tom Patrick at
tomp@yukon-news.com