Saturday brought a major weather change to Whistler with heavy snow and wind. This made for a pretty slow skate sprint course, but XCOttawa braved the conditions and pulled through with some great results.
The women started first a few minutes after the final grooming was complete and tried to stay light on their feet up the first big climb. With the junior and senior fields split, all of the senior women got to race the heats. This kept John, Eamonn and Justin busy. I had a good qualifier and started the heats seeded 14th. Sheila, Ingrid and Vesta also broke into the top 20. The heats were hard but also lots of fun and I was particularly impressed with Ingrid's performance. She finished a very close 4th in a strong heat! Unfortunately we were all done after the quarterfinals, but we did get to watch Alana (former XCOttawa skier) ski all the way to the final and finish 6th.
In the men's race, Andre had the fastest XCOttawa time in the qualifier and seeded himself in 24th in a very tight senior men's field. Lee and Karl had an extremely close battle for the coveted 30th spot (only 30 skiers get to start the heats) with Lee coming out on top by 0.2 seconds. In the heats, Lee had a super strong finish passing 2 skiers in the final meters to move up to 20th overall for the day.
Here are the results:
Now for some pictures:
Some of the team in Whistler village
Anna likes CVTC's new van!
Whistler!!!, Whistler!!!, Whistler!!!
Pete rounding the last turn in his qualifier.
Matthias finishing off his qualifier.
Women's A final.
Lee about to make his pass.
Lots of new snow!
"Heat Recovery Formula!"