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By Anne Duggan
The ski tracks leading Carleton Ravens cross-country skier Carrington Pomeroy to the FISU World Student Games in Almaty, Kazakhstan this month include some unexpected stops and starts. Those come from the Tuesday/Thursday evenings and Saturday mornings when he coaches younger athletes in the same direction.
The FISU Winter Universiade is held every two years, and is a gathering of the world’s best student-athletes. For Pomeroy, the Jan. 29-Feb. 8 event represents the achievement of a life-long goal.
“Every young athlete wants this,” underlines the fourth-year Raven from Chelsea. “You always want to represent your country. That’s what I get to do. I get to race for Canada.”
Beginning with the 10 km classic, Pomeroy hopes to compete in all six FISU races, from the team sprint to the 30 km individual distance race. The 24-year-old earned his place on the 5-member Canadian men’s team thanks to a consistent 2016 race season, where he accumulated top points from his best seven distance races and four sprints.
One of Pomeroy’s other efforts last year had surprising benefits towards his goal of consistent results.
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“It’s really interesting, but the thing that has helped me the most, technique-wise, has been to coach it,” explains the Nakkertok Nordic athlete/coach. “It helps me to understand why I am doing it. Like making sure their ski poles are at head-level to get over top of them and get the most out of each push.”
For the last two years, Pomeroy has been an instrumental part of the coaching team led by Nakkertok junior development coach Kieran Jones and Anneke Winegarden, who train Nakkertok’s 50 juvenile and junior athletes, ages 12 through 18.
It’s not a glamorous or even a comfortable job – often done in the dark, the wet and the cold, with sometimes distracted and always-social teenagers. But Pomeroy and the coaching team clearly get the job done and well.
Home to many Ottawa members, their Cantley-based club has taken home the national championship team banner for the last seven years. Nakkertok’s juvenile and junior teams, the club’s largest age groups, are the engine behind this effort.
Pomeroy, who began his cross-country ski career as a 10-year-old with Chelsea Nordiq, is quick to point out that he has also benefited from coaching in the more traditional way.
Chelsea juvenile coach Chris Alderson “brought the fun of competition to me and my friends,” while Jones, who started coaching Pomeroy in his high school years, has also had a “huge” influence.
“A mentor, a coach and a friend,” Pomeroy says of Jones. “All that he ever wants for his athletes is to achieve their goals. Getting to talk and train with him is the big reason that I have stayed in the sport.
“It feels like my goals are his goals and that is motivating.”
The toughest part of Pomeroy’s trail to international competition has been “affording everything, and finding the time to afford everything,” he highlights. The environmental science student says the cost of a ski season for an athlete of his level runs between $5,000-$10,000, plus there’s tuition, so that means working as a coach, a teaching assistant at Carleton, and in sales for Greg Christie’s Ski and Cycle Works in Old Chelsea.
“On top of this there are 20 hours of school per week and 12-15 hours of skiing,” adds Pomeroy, noting it takes time management, energy and the occasional “power bar” – consisting of a lot of chocolate and graham cracker crumbs made by his mother Lee Anne Johnston – to get Pomeroy through his loaded weeks.
Luckily, the source of Pomeroy’s motivation is found along the ski trails – especially on cold, sunny days – with a group of his teammates.
“All the skiers at Nakkertok and Carleton make coming to practice and races much more fun,” indicates the 2015 Ontario university team champion and winner of a silver medal and 2 bronze nationally. “The social side of it is really appealing to me. I will graduate on time and have had a really good four years of skiing. And now I get to ski at an international event, which was a big goal.”
Local hockey players on FISU squads
Canada’s FISU hockey teams will have their fair share of Ottawa flair. Four Ravens men’s hockey forwards will wear the maple leaf in Almaty – Michael McNamee, Cody Van Stralen, Brett Welychka and Ottawa native Corey Durocher – while Canada’s women’s lineup includes University of Ottawa Gee-Gees leading scorer Mélodie Bouchard and former Nepean Wildcats Provincial Women’s Hockey League star Maude Laramée of Université de Montréal.
The Canadian women open their tournament against China on Jan. 28, while the Team Canada men take on USA Jan. 30.