Sunday 16 March 2014

A great day of classic skiing in challenging weather conditions

It was another good day of classic skiing for the skiers from the Yukon today. The weather played a big factor in many of the races throughout the day. It seemed like the snow conditions were changing all the time making the work for the coaches a constant challenge during the day.

The day started well for the Yukon Ski Team with our two senior men skiers battling for a place on the podium from start to finish. In the end, Knute finished 3rd and Colin finished 4th. A great start for the team. The second race involved the senior women including the junior women. Dahria and Emily were outstanding again both winning their respective category. Just as amazing were Annah and Kendra who both had excellent races finishing 3rd and 5th respectively. Kendra was the fastest university skier today. The next category included our junior boys with some solid results from Caelan, Marcus, Mac and Hudson who finished 6th, 11th, 24th and 50th respectively. The 24th place for Mac was especially impressive considering Mac had just achieved the National criteria earlier this winter in the selection races. Following was Simon in the Juvenile boys category who posted a great finish with a 9th place, a great result on such a challenging day. Finally, the Juvenile girls finished the day with perhaps the most challenging track conditions of the day. The girls battled hard and made everyone on the team proud for the effort. Natalie was the fastest skier from the Yukon with an 11th place while Hannah D. was 16th, Hannah S. was 26th, Mira 41st and Alexis 44th. It was a very good race for Hanna S. today. Nice to see Hannah racing well again.

Overall, it was a great learning experience for everyone. It is not easy to ski in these very unusual conditions with wet snow, freezing ice pellets and rain all within a matter of minutes. The next few races will be held in skating which should be a bit easier on the coaching staff :)