By Gerry Furseth
CANMORE NORDIC CENTRE — The excitement at the Canmore Nordic Centre was audible on Friday for the first day of World Cup racing here since 2016. The crowds were large and loud, lining large sections of the course. The athletes were smiling, with Europeans and North Americans competing to love the venue more.
Skate distance day
For Canada, though, the numbers on the result sheet for the first day of racing, a 15-kilometre free technique mass start, were nothing to write home about. Day two, a free technique sprint, would bring some better numbers, but that is not the whole story.
For many of the Canadians, it was about experiencing that first World Cup start. Others got to practice managing the pressure of racing at home in front of friends and family.
The women’s race was first up with five Canadians on the line, all getting their first World Cup start. Local skier Anna Parent was the first to the finish, placing 41st, while working off the nerves in her least favourite of the four days.
“I knew that they were going to start really really fast so I tried to go with them, I tried to make up some positions, but it was even faster than I thought that they were going to go,” Parent said in the mixed zone.
“I’m looking forward to the next three races; they’re kind of typically better races for me, especially the Sunday race, the classic 20km,” Parent said. “I’m really excited for that after doing a pretty good performance today.”
“It was so awesome coming over the top of the stadium there. I just heard my name in big screams,” Parent explained. “I think that’s where I was going the fastest because I saw all the Canadian flags and I recognized people’s voices.“
Anna Stewart, Élie-Anne Tremblay, Katya Semeniuk, and Maeve Macleod finished consecutively, 44th to 47th.
Katherine Stewart-Jones, who was flirting with the World Cup Red Group before getting sick early in the Tour de Ski, was not at the start. No reason was shared, but people who know Stewart-Jones will know that she had a good reason. Olivia Bouffard-Nesbitt decided in advance to skip the 15km to focus on Saturday’s sprint, but was accidentally left on the start list.
The men also skied 15km, with Sam Hendry leading the way for the home team in 30th.
“It’s phenomenal,” Hendry said. “To be waking up in the bed that I grew up in at home and then get to drive five minutes to the Nordic Centre and race the World Cup is unreal. It’s truly a surreal experience.”
The race itself went fairly well for Hendry, who is still adapting from the weekly schedule in NCAA to more time between races in FIS racing.
“The first lap was quite easy and everyone was together,” Hendry said. “And then I think it was Mika Vermeulen, the Austrian, he came to the front and kind of put the gas down and then it started to hurt for the rest of us from there on out.”
“It was incredible today. I really, really did not anticipate that kind of result today. I don’t know what it was. Probably just being at home and on some hard courses at altitude, I just felt awesome and was able to ski with the pack right up until the last lap there and then just kind of hang on and grind it out until the finish.”
Antoine Cyr came in with higher expectations and finished in 37th.
“It was definitely a really disappointing day for me,” Cyr said. “It was not a good performance; the body felt ok. We’ve been struggling with the equipment since the start of the season and today was no exception to that. We’ll turn it around for the rest of the weekend.”
While none of the Canadians talked about ski speed, a number of non-Canadian journalists asked why the Canadian skis were so bad. One could speculate that Canada is struggling more with the transition to non-fluoro waxing, at least compared to countries like the U.S. and Norway that were able to make larger investments in testing before the transition.
Rémi Drolet was the third Canadian in 42nd.
“I think it’s a hard course and for me coming from sea level it’s a little bit of an adjustment up here at altitude,” he said. “But I don’t know, I’m happy with how I raced. I fought really hard and even though maybe I would have liked a slightly better result I think it was a decent first day.”
Drolet is studying theoretical physics at Harvard: a great school, but perhaps not the ideal path to short-term speed.
“The school thing is good, in my last semester now so I’m just trying to get to the finish line through that and I’m happy I’m still able to come do a couple of World Cups during the school year,” Drolet said.
Léo Grandbois was next in 46th.
“Fun day,” said Grandbois. “Always good to race at home and such nice weather. Fun day, but it was hard though, hard track. Altitude and the hills were tough on the bodies, but I’m sure next days will be better.“
Asked about how it feels to race at home, Grandbois laughed.
“I’m from Quebec so it’s a five-hour flight from here. But still, it’s good to have people cheer your name on the track, it’s always good. And Canmore, since I’m a boy I come here to train and race so it’s a bit like home.“
Xav McKeever in 51st and Scott Hill in 52nd have previous World Cup experience while Aidan Kirkham (50th), Félix-Olivier Moreau (53rd), Eamon Wilson (55th), Adam Heale (57th), and Micah Steinberg (DNF) were earning their first starts.
Olivier Léveillé was struggling before he dropped out. He shouted an explanation to his coach trailside a lap earlier, but your reporter was unable to translate that.
Skate sprint day
Saturday brought free technique sprints on the 1.3km course along with slightly colder weather and Canadians talking about fast skis.
Bouffard-Nesbitt was the first Canadian to start.
“It’s a prime Canmore day: hard track, fast snow, pretty much blue sky. Weather’s great, crowds are great, especially for a qualifier,” she explained. “I felt great today and everything was going according to my race plan until I hit a patch of ice … right before I went under the bridge. And it just bit my ski and before I could even react I was sliding on the ground.”
The bridge turn is fast, challenging, and changes as skiers scrape through the corduroy; it would later claim Federico Pellegrino.
Bouffard-Nesbitt would finish 48th, 11 seconds away from qualifying and frustrated with what might have been.
“That was a decision on my part to put all my eggs in one basket and give her for the sprints,” she said.
Pellegrino made the same choice to skip the 15km and expressed similar frustration after falling in the same place for the same reason.
Katie Weaver was the fastest Canadian on Saturday, finishing 35th and 2 seconds outside the heats.
“Today was actually, it was really good. I think I typically don’t have a lot of confidence in my skate abilities, but today was an awesome race for me,” she said. “I definitely felt like I could have found those extra little seconds out there, which is a bit disappointing to see that I was so close. But at the same time, it’s really motivating for the race I’m looking forward to the most, which will be on Tuesday” when there is a 20km mass start classic.
Parent was back for her second World Cup experience in as many days, placing 41st.
“It was pretty good,” she said. “I mean, skate sprint definitely hasn’t been my race in the past. But yeah, I’ve skied the sprint course so many times. So yeah, I did not want to count myself out and yeah, I think it was okay.”
“I’m definitely a classic distance person. So yeah, tomorrow, I’m really looking forward to it.”
Asked about whether reality matched the dream, Parent smiled. Again.
“It is so amazing. Yesterday I was coming into the finish. I heard so many cheers. The crowd is amazing. I had a big smile on my face and I was like, This is the coolest thing ever. And I want to do this over and over again.”
Stewart was 42nd in her second World Cup start.
“It was honestly pretty good,” said Stewart. “It was my very first World Cup sprint race. Yesterday was my first World Cup race ever. I actually felt pretty strong.”
“It’s honestly crazy. We’re both [pointing to Weaver] waking up in our own beds because we live here in Canmore. It’s super different from the domestic races in Canada. Most of the time I’m really nervous and actually scared, but then once I’m on the start line, it feels fine.“
Élie-Anne Tremblay, 19 years old, and Maeve Macleod, 18, both had their first World Cup starts in the sprint, placing 51st and 53rd.
“I went super great,” Tremblay said. “The course was super fast. The downhill was hard, but I took it in a good position. So super happy with my race day.”
Macleod noted, “It was really good. The skis were super fast. It’s a tough course with all up and then all down, but it goes by pretty fast and yeah I felt pretty good.”
“I’m only 18,” Macleod continued, “so it’s pretty cool to see all my idols here and compete with them. It’s pretty awesome. It’s very inspiring.”
On the men’s side, Canada had a new face in the heats. Pierre Grall-Johnson celebrated his seventh career World Cup start by qualifying 19th, just ahead of Erik Valnes and Pål Golberg.
“I didn’t really want to be leading going into that corner, into the downhill, but I saw a gap at the top and I was in sixth,” Grall-Johnson said. “And I thought I should try and get a better position. But I actually ended up in first there and that was a little bit of a surprise and everybody was kind of lollygagging. At that point, I didn’t really know what other cards to pull at the moment, so I just tried to push as hard as I could over the top. The draft is so significant, but yeah, it was quite fun.”
You could say Grall-Johnson got schooled by Edvin Anger (on the podium today) and Erik Valnes (second today, wearing the red sprint leaders bib), but if so he was in good company.
“[The crowd noise] was pretty incredible,” said Grall-Johnson. “Gave me some chills, so that was good. Tried to use it and tried to stay calm and use the course I knew to my advantage.”
“After yesterday, I was a little bit disappointed so I was debating skipping today,” McKeever said. “But after having that kind of battery, I was like, I want to come back out here and try and throw down. And yeah, I think my preparation was good and a little bit of scramble in the morning just trying to calm down and get my good warm up in. But yeah, I think I was able to just kind of relax for the race and just kind of approach it with good technique and good strategy.”
Disappointment turned to energy for McKeever: “Everyone was super loud coming around the right-hander in this first small downhill. And that gave me a lot of energy to just give her up the second climb.”
“Eight years ago I was a 12-year-old boy running around the ski tracks. trying to get autographs from Alex Harvey, Northug, Sundby, those guys. That was kind of like my fanboy era of skiing,” McKeever recalled. “We’ve learned from the last couple weeks, especially at U23s with Sonjaa [Schmidt with gold], anything can happen on any given day.”
One of the Canadian coaches told this reporter before U20/U23 Worlds last year at Whistler that it is sometimes harder to perform at home, harder to keep the bubble. McKeever made that a learning opportunity.
“Whistler, I had big expectations for myself and I was just really nervous for all the races. And just, yeah, it was just kind of tough the way I handled it. So this year I learned a lot from that moment. I’m just trying to embrace it more and just have more fun. And I think so far, yesterday was not so fun. But I think today is a good bounce back and it’s fun again.”
Léo Grandbois was also in sight of his dream in 34th.
“it was really close, so it’s a bit bittersweet,” he said. “I would have liked to qualify for heats and I had a… I tripped under the bridge in the last corner of the race, so I think I lost some precious time. Not much, but maybe enough to not qualify, so no, it’s a bit hard.“
Ry Prior couldn’t stop smiling after his first World Cup start, finishing 37th while still a junior.
“This was my first World Cup start, pretty stoked about that, yeah.”
“It was pretty awesome,” he said. “I didn’t manage to qualify, I was just over a second off I think, but for my first start it was totally awesome being in Canada. A bunch of my friends were here, my family’s here, it was really awesome, really epic. “
Asked what makes a World Cup different, he had a list.
“Like a media tent that I missed? There’s so many things. I don’t have to worry about taking my skis to the start, and having two timing chips, one on each leg, little things like that, but also just the crowds that were here. There’s one hairpin that there’s just a roar of people and it’s something I’ve never really experienced before so that was really just like an awesome experience.”
Nordic Insights found Prior chatting with his parents after the race, unaware that he had skipped the mixed-zone interviews.
“I started coaching a U12 Foothills (local) ski team and a bunch of them were like so stoked about me racing here and they’re like oh we’re gonna come out and getting me to like sign autographs for them which makes me feel like a superstar. It’s totally awesome to see like younger generations out here too, that see something like this and realize that people they’ve been training with are doing it and it’s possible.”
At the end of the interview, a large group of kids appeared, pens in hand, to get the autograph of a Canmore-based skier who had just earned his first World Cup points.
There are so many inspiring stories here and in Planica too, but even reporters need sleep. Canada is also proud of Julian Smith in 40th, Rémi Drolet 49th, Julien Locke 52nd, Erikson Moore 53, Félix-Olivier Moreau 55th, and Olivier Léveillé DNS.
Full Canadian photo gallery coming tomorrow. —Ed.
