Nipissing Nordic represented at Canadian Nationals

The Nipissing Nordic Ski Team supported three of its varsity athletes and five juniors from the Sault, Timmins, Temiskaming and North Bay at the Canadian National Ski Championships in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. Our varsity athletes came up just short of CCUNC medals with two fourth-place finishes, while our juniors demonstrated growing potential for skier development out of Northern Ontario.

The races kicked off with a classic team relay. The Lakers men were represented by Matt Chalmers and Jordan Cascagnette, who each skied three laps of the 1.4km course. The team fought to stay in contact with the third-place team, with a fall on Chalmers’ last lap putting in too much of a gap to make up, and the team finishing fourth for the day.

The Championships carried on with a 10km classic individual race, with slow skis pushing the results back, with Cascagnette 11th CCUNC with a time of 30.15.8, Chalmers in 17th, and Kevin Durkee close behind in 18th. After a rest day, the skiers raced the 15km skate event, with Cascagnette scoring 6th, Durkee 19th and Chalmers 20th over the course.

In the CCUNC varsity sprints, Cascagnette came tantalizingly close to the podium, finishing 4th, just 2.32 seconds out of a medal, and .91 seconds out of the heats, with teammates Durkee and Chalmers finishing 18th and 20th respectively.

The final race of the week was a 50km classic mass start, with icy conditions prevailing. Illness got the better of Durkee, but Cascagnette and Chalmers capped off the Championships with 32nd and 42nd place finishes in the open men’s field. The race was won by Canadian National Ski Team member and World Champion Alex Harvey in a time of 2:20:20.079, followed closely by teammates Graeme Killick in 2:20:20.790, and Ivan Babikov in 2:20:27.814 for an exciting sprint finish.

The Lakers Nordic Ski Team will now take the month of April off from ski training to recover and focus on exams, with the new ski season starting up in earnest in May.