Good ski and costume-wearing weather helped make Saturday’s Marsh Lake Cross-Country Ski Loppet one of the most successful in the event’s 16-year history.
Up by almost 90 skiers from last year, 251 skiers, including 98 junior competitors, participated in various races and a bit of costumed tomfoolery.
Letting their imaginations run wild, skiers Sally Wright and JP Pinard won the Captain Fun Award for their Calvin and Hobbes costumes.
“They were dressed up and then were dancing with the timers once they crossed the finish line,” said Chief of Race Simi Morrison. “All the timers were dressed up and there were people out with other costumes.”
Last year, 162 skiers braved temperatures just short of the minus 20 cutoff, which was recently lowered to minus 15 for junior skiers under Cross-Country Canada regulations. The previous year organizers had to cancel the event with minus 35 temperatures exceeding the cutoff.
“The last two years it was smaller because of the cold weather we had,” said Morrison. “This year the whole season has been so mild that we knew it was going to be a bigger one.”
For the second year in a row, Whitehorse’s Knute Johnsgaard, 17, won the open 20-kilometre event, coming in more than seven minutes faster than last year with the time of one hour, thee minutes and 33 seconds.
The day’s fastest female skier on the 20-kilometre course was Whitehorse’s Kendra Murray, crossing the finish line in 1:12:47.
“People just love the race; we had a lot of positive feedback,” said Morrison. “We all really had a lot of fun.”
Atom division results
(one kilometre)
1st Derek Dueling - 0:03:25
2nd Ben Puskas - 0:03:41
3rd Sonjaa Schmidt - 0:03:44
4th Sasha Masson - 0:04:01
5th Dahlia Lapointe - 0:04:01.7
6th Curtis Cash - 0:04:06
7th Samuel Mather - 0:04:12
8th Sullivan Bond - 0:04:14
9th Caius Taggart-Cox - 0:04:30
10th Alliya Thomson - 0:04:32
11th Aidan Hupe - 0:04:54
12th Liam Diamond - 0:04:55
13th Romeo Champagne - 0:04:58
14th Lucas Henderson - 0:04:59
15th Aleix Sarin-Toews - 0:05:06
15th Indiana-Rose Pumphrey - 0:05:06
17th Molly Henderson - 0:05:10
18th Jay Sinclair - 0:05:12
19th Ross Sennett - 0:05:23
20th Gabrielle Perreault - 0:05:30
21st Isidore Champagne - 0:05:35
22nd Orlina Menard - 0:05:38
23rd Neah Connell - 0:05:43
24th Constance Lapointe - 0:05:53
25th Marina Boulerice - 0:06:16
26th Lucas Taggart-Cox - 0:06:26
27th Maude Molgat - 0:07:30
28th Love Gouaillier - 0:07:31
29th Sophie Molgat - 0:11:47
30th Simon Connell - 0:13:29
31st Lisa Freeman - 0:13:37
32nd Alina Prentice - 0:15:20
33rd Felix Masson - 0:15:22
34th Misa Svoboda - 0:16:34
Contact Tom Patrick at tomp@yukon-news.com