Medals abound for Ottawa cross-country skiers at home Easterns

By Anne Duggan

Three days of breathtaking speed, stunning effort, flying banners and the many colours of club and team uniforms from across Canada took over the snowbound hills of Cantley as all the local cross-country ski clubs collaborated to host the 2014 Eastern Canadian Championships at Nakkertok South Nordic Centre from Jan. 31-Feb. 2.

Juvenile racer Alison Pouw was amongst the region’s strongest racers at the event that featured more than 600 racers. The Nakkertok athlete scored two gold medals (7.5 km classic mass start & 5 km free) and a bronze (3 km free) in the juvenile women’s category.

“There is a lot more competition at this event so it gives me a real taste of how the other parts of the country are doing,” explains the Glebe Collegiate Institute student. “The Easterns are a way to get me ready for nationals.”

Chelsea Nordiq skier Laura Leclair points to her many hours of practice on Nakkertok’s trails as an effective way to prepare for such a large event.

“I knew the course really well. I had practiced it so many times,” notes the 3 km free gold medalist and 5 km free bronze medalist in the younger junior B women’s class. “My ski buddy and I raced down Dirk’s Dive over and over.”

Dirk’s Dive, Nakkertok’s steepest hill, was especially challenging during Sunday’s races, with large fluffy piles of soft snow turning skis at a moment when racers least expected it. There were many spills from racers of all abilities, from national team members to the juvenile boys.

It didn’t stop numerous local athletes from winning hardware, however.

Nakkertok’s Emilie Stewart-Jones was a double-medalist in the junior A women’s 1.4 km free (gold) and 15 km classic mass start (silver), as was Nakkertok’s Maks Zechel in junior B men’s (silver in 3 km & 7.5 km free).

Chelsea Nordiq’s William Dumas was a gold medalist, Nakkertok’s Colin Foley and Katherine Marshall were silver medalists, while Skinouk’s Nicholas Pigeon, and Nakkertok’s Kailey Young and Brendon Howard earned bronze medals.

Two local athletes were triple-medalists at the para-nordic nationals, held alongside the Easterns competition. Kanata Nordic athletes Alexei Novikov and Margarita Gorbounova both won a gold and two silver in the men’s and women’s standing competitions respectively.

At the Jan. 29-Feb. 3 Junior/U23 World Cross-Country Ski Championships in Italy, Katherine Stewart-Jones earned the best result out of four Nakkertok athletes, posting a 15th-place finish in the junior women’s sprint race. Patrick Stewart-Jones, Ben Wilkinson-Zan and Sebastien Townsend were the other Nakkertok participants.