.: Ski XCOttawa.ca :: Skiing in Ottawa and Gatineau Park

Eastern Canadian Championships: The Classic Sprint
By:  Katie McMahon   (2013/02/03)

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Phew! That was one killer of a weekend! Now before I get too caught up in the fatigue that is my body right now after three days of consecutive racing, I should begin at the beginning; Friday and the Classic Sprints.

 XCOttawa toed the line bright and early Friday morning for what was definitely one of the most intimidating sprint courses of the year. Changing it up from previous years, the course at Nakkertok was extended about 10ft in the vertical direction, which made for two mighty big climbs paired with two equally challenging descents. Add that to the fact that the tracks were absolutely perfect and hard packed making  “It was fast out there” an understatement, and you have a recipe for some very exciting ski racing!

With the qualifying round over before we knew it, all that was left was to settle down and hope Lady Luck had been on our sides today and that we had moved on to the quarter final round. Fortunately, all that hard work mixed in with a little bit of ‘bonne chance’, led to XCOttawa women: Sheila, Ingrid, Kyla and Katie all moving on to the heats. As for the men, Peter and Lee were the ones to move through in a very competitive field.

Regrettably, all the speedy XCOttawa racers were out after the quarterfinals, but still managed respectable races and even moved up a few spots in the rankings. Because Easterns is a three-day ‘Multi-Stage’ event the racers who made it into the top 30 received bonus seconds going to their three day total, which is always kind of cool.

Congratulations to everyone racing, that was no easy feat!

 A special shout out to XCOttawa Alumni Colin Abbot for a 5th place finish and Alana Thomas for an 8th place!

Also, a very grateful thank you to Dirk Van Wijk and the new Piston Bully for turning sheer ice into perfect conditions and and all the volunteers for providing an awesome and organized race weekend as well the most delicious ‘ski tea’ I have ever had.

 

Full results for the women can be found here: http://zone4.ca/results.asp?ID=5386&cat=261

And men: http://zone4.ca/results.asp?ID=5386&cat=262

Stay tuned for details on the rest of the racing this weekend!

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Peter tearing it up in his quaterfinal

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Katie catching the pain train during her sprint

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Matthias hammering in his heat!

 
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