One has to wonder if this can go on all season. Both Henry Enders, 19, and Heather Enders, 22, made it four in a row Wednesday, winning VeloNorth Cycling Club’s Porter Creek ITT.
The two Team Yukon riders, who will be representing the territory at the Canada Summer Games in August, have won every VeloNorth race this season in the men’s and women’s expert divisions respectively.
“This is a Canada Summer Games year, so every single race I go out in I try my hardest and I push as hard as I can so I’m prepared for the Games,” said Enders. “Sport is such an unpredictable thing, it’s anybody’s event every single race.”
Taking second in the expert men was Ian Parker who finished VeloNorth’s first road race of the season with the same results.
Surprisingly, Enders’ closest competition did not come from the expert women’s category, but from Kerrie Paterson in the sport women division, crossing the finish line just 33 seconds behind Enders. Paterson had a rough start to the season finishing last in the VeloNorth’s first event of the season for the sport women division, but bounced back in the next event, taking first.
“In Whitehorse I find a lot of the women in sport (division) and expert (division) are kind of close and the results can interchange,” said Enders.
The 21.8-kilometre course took the racers down Twelfth Avenue from Centennial Street to Mountainview Drive to Range Road and up to the Alaska Highway and back.
“It’s a tougher race course because you have some hills and it’s a time trial,” said Enders. “It was a little bit windy, but it was good. The finishing section is always the best part because it’s the fastest—you can get going pretty good.”
Both Henry and Enders will be trying to make it five-for-five this Sunday at VeloNorth’s Skagway Hill Climb in Skagway, Alaska.
Results
Expert men
1st Troy Henry - 30:17
2nd Ian Parker - 32:04
3rd John Berryman - 33:14
Expert women
1st Heather Enders - 37:22
2nd Kaitlyn MacDonald - 39:47
3rd Kelsey Kabanak - 42:23
Sport men
1st Darren Holcombe - 35:44
2nd Brian MacDonald - 36:23
3rd Dan Reimer - 36:46
Sport women
1st Kerrie Paterson - 37:55
2nd Laura Salmon - 38: 57
3rd Julia Gerlach - 40:06
Contact Tom Patrick at
tomp@yukon-news.com