By Martin Cleary
For the second straight year, Canadian skiers won both the men’s and women’s races at the FIS World Cup ski cross in Arosa, Switzerland, on Tuesday night.
But this time it wasn’t the Schmidt siblings, although they were in the hunt to defend and repeat their unprecedented showing from 2023.
The women’s race was a Canadian medal sweep as Marielle Thompson captured her 33rd World Cup victory and was followed by runner-up India Sherret and third-place finisher Hannah Schmidt of Dunrobin, ON.
Reece Howden scored his first World Cup win of the season, winning the men’s race in a photo finish ahead of Italy’s Simone Deromedis and Sweden’s David Mobaerg, the defending overall champion from 2023-24.
Jared Schmidt placed fourth in the Big Final, which had the top two racers from each semifinal.
At the 2023 World Cup in Arosa, Hannah and Jared Schmidt made history by becoming the first siblings to win a World Cup race on the same day and at the same event.
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Canada has won four of the six races to start the World Cup season as well as taking nine of the 18 podium positions.
“It’s absolutely amazing,” Hannah said about the Canadian performances after the races. “To share with two other Canadians, I couldn’t be happier.
“I was skiing well today. My starts were great. I’m just happy to be back on the podium, after an injury from last year. I’m skiing well right now and I’m looking to move that into Innichen (Italy on Friday and Saturday).”
Hannah reached the Big Final by winning her round-of-16 race, placing second in her quarterfinal and winning her semifinal. Jared finished second in his four races leading to the Big Final. In his round-of-16, quarterfinal and semifinal, he was runner-up to Howden, who won all five of his races.
Martin Cleary has written about amateur sports for over 52 years. A past Canadian sportswriter of the year and Ottawa Sports Awards Lifetime Achievement in Sport Media honouree, Martin retired from full-time work at the Ottawa Citizen in 2012, but continued to write a bi-weekly “High Achievers” column for the Citizen/Sun.
When the pandemic struck, Martin created the High Achievers “Stay-Safe Edition” to provide some positive news during tough times, via his Twitter account at first and now here at OttawaSportsPages.ca.
Martin can be reached by e-mail at martincleary51@gmail.com and on Twitter @martincleary.
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