December 4 - Canmore Part II

Day two of competitions in Canmore NORAM Continental Cup, and the guys skied 15km Classic on a tough loop with lots of climbing. Ben Sim and Ben Derrick finished 14th and 19th respectively, 2:36 and 3:17 behind the winner George Grey from Canada. Both skiers lost contact with the main bunch fairly early on, with Ben Sim ending up skiing most of the race by himself. BD yoyoed around a small group before finishing strongly and moving up a handful of places on the last lap. Nick Grimmer finished back in 70th place, skiing a solid race after getting caught in a pile-up in the start. The air temperature during the race was about -10 - almost balmy in comparison to the -25 first thing in the morning. Full results available at Zone 4.

The result for the two Bens was not bad, but the boys will have to ski a lot faster in the World Cup next weekend if they are to have any chance of coming close to the qualifying standard for Torino.

After a six hour drive (stuck for a while behind trucks on the Trans-Canada highway, with swirling snow making for extremely poor visibility) all the Australian Team is now in Silver Star where most of the other international teams are staying for the Sovereign Lake World Cup. Special thanks to the George family in Silver Star, who organised a house for us for the week and are cooking us up a storm (and they put up with Esther Bottomley for the past month and a half), and also to Peter and Benita Carters, who hosted Ben Derrick for his first two weeks in Canada and are looking after Clare-Louise Brumley this week.

So while the World Cup is the main focus of this week, on Tuesday afternoon/evening there is also a sprint in downtown Silver Star - here is some of the pre-event hype:

Come on up for the most energized Nordic event in North America this year - Silver Star's Night Sprints Dash for Cash! Olympic and World Cup Nordic racers from 23 nations will be skate sprinting madly around a 650 metre course at the centre of Silver Star Mountain Resort, with $10,000 in cash up for grabs! Join in the massive street party with music, lights, fireworks, food vendors in the village, and watch the action on the giant 17' Jumbotron!

Next update on Wednesday.

December 3 - Canmore Part I

Today was the first day of the Canmore NORAM Continental Cup in Canada, and three Australians contested the Sprint Freestyle event - Ben Derrick and Ben Sim from the World Cup team, and Nick Grimmer who drove up from the USA at the start of the week. Ben Sim was a late addition to the team in Canada - with form starting to pick up in Kuusamo last weekend he decided to compete in the Sovereign Lake World Cup events next weekend. The rest of the World Cup team here in Canada chose to stay and train in Silver Star, well actually Paul Murray only arrived there today from Sweden.

The temperature at the time of the qualifying was right on the FIS limit of -20 degrees (it was -18 in the stadium and -20.5 at the top of the course). Ben Sim was the fastest of the Australians in the 1.2km time trial, finishing in 19th place, 8 seconds behind the fastest qualifier Phil Widmer of Canada. The new World Cup system was used, where 30 athletes are taken to the finals, with the normal 1/4-final round consisting of 5 heats of 6 athletes. Ben Derrick was 3 seconds further back in 31st place (damn!), with Nick Grimmer another 5 seconds back in 51st place. BD had this to say after the race:

"If some young punk hadn't come over from Europe at the last minute I would have made my first sprint final in the northern hemisphere."

That young punk skied a pretty solid 1/4 final, coming from behind to finish 3rd behind Canadians Drew Goldsack and Dave Nighbor - missing out on a semi-final spot but moving up to 15th in the overall ranking. Widmer won the A-final ahead of Goldsack. Beckie Scott won the women's final ahead of Chandra Crawford.

Tomorrow the competition for the men is a 15km Classic Mass Start. It is expected to get down to about -28 tonight but warm up to -7 during the day. After the race the team is packing up and driving over to Silver Star - about 5-6 hours away by car apparently, so most likely another report wont be posted until Monday December 5. The best place to find results will probably be the Faster Skier or Ski Faster websites.



Courtesy XC Files