2021 FIS World Junior/U23 Championships
Vuokatti, Finland
February 9 – 14, 2021
Feb 12th, 2021 – Junior & U23 Individual Skate Races
It was a historic day for Canada today with Olivier Léveillé absolutely crushing his 10km individual skate race and winning a bronze medal in the Junior Men's category! Individual start races are a true measure of grit, perseverance and your fitness/feeling on the day and he sure showed up. Tom Stephens was 10th which was also an incredible performance.
Julia and Ollie on the sprint day (picture by Tomi Mäkipää)
It was a hard course with lots of working sections and very little recovery. The downhills were technical but not sketchy, and the snow was cold, a little soft and slow. We had awesome skis from the techs and support and splits trail side from Eric, Julia and Joel.
Our wax techs, the unsung heroes, managed four races/categories successfully today. Each race category had four athletes with about four pairs of skis each to test and pick the fastest. The techs would narrow down our fleets with glide outs and one and one comparisons long before we arrived at the truck. By the time we rolled up they had the best two for us to try and then decide together on a race pair. Nordiq Canada has also committed Canada’s waxing truck and world cup wax techs to the World Juniors for the next little while and it is a game changer. The expertise and quality of our skis has been amazing. Team Canada is also three minutes from the start here in Vuokatti, whereas the rest of the nations are about 1km away in wax cabins. It’s the little things that make all the difference.
Brian McKeever testing classic skis with Shay (picture by Tomi Mäkipää)
Jasmine Drolet and Elizabeth Elliot were our top women today (junior and U23 respectively) placing 23rd and 28th in their categories. Antoine Cyr led the U23 men in 18th. A few of us were definitely feeling the rust of not racing but hopefully that will inspire good summer training and excitement for next season (fingers crossed).
The relay days are dropping tomorrow and it will be exciting to see if the junior men can defend their silver medal from last year. The results today look quite positive to say the least.
by Annika Richardson
Liliane racing the skate 5km (picture by Annika)
BC Athlete Competes at World Junior Championships for Great Britain
Gabe Gledhill, a former BC Ski Team athlete from the Strathcona Nordic Ski Club (Courtenay) is also competing at the Championships. Gabe, who is a dual citizen, is training and competing for Great Britten this year. He finished a very respectable 39th in todays 10km skate race.
Additional Reports & Photos:
http://www.crosscountrybc.ca/bc-athletes-2021-world-junioru23-championships-feb-4
http://www.crosscountrybc.ca/bc-athletes-2021-world-junioru23-championships-feb-8
http://www.crosscountrybc.ca/bc-athletes-2021-world-junioru23-championships-feb-11
BC Athletes on the Canadian Team:
Juniors:
Joe Davies (Whistler Nordic Ski Club, Whistler)
Jasmine Drolet (Black Jack Cross Country Ski Club, Rossland)
Molly Miller (Black Jack Cross Country Ski Club, Kimberley)
Alexandra Luxmoore (Revelstoke Nordic Ski Club, Revelstoke)
U23s:
Elizabeth Elliott (Revelstoke Nordic Ski Club, Revelstoke)
Hannah Mehain (Sovereign Lake Nordic Club, Vernon)
Rémi Drolet (Black Jack Cross Country Ski Club, Rossland)
Annika Richardson (Hollyburn Cross Country Ski Club, North Vancouver)
Beth Granstrom (Revelstoke Nordic Ski Club, Revelstoke)