November 04, 2011 – Cross Country Canada (CCC) recently announced the selection of three additional athletes who will compete at the early season FIS and World Cup races along side Canada’s Senior World Cup team, as part of a so-called “convergence” group.

Among those selected for the trip are Drew Goldsack, Alysson Marshall and Kevin Sandau, all of whom train out of the Alberta World Cup Academy in Canmore, AB. Harnessing other top performing athletes to gain exposure at international races abroad is a critical part of CCC’s strategy for developing Canada’s next crop of World Cup and Olympic athletes, according to CCC Director of High Performance, Thomas Holland.

For a number of years Canadian athletes had opportunities to compete on home soil against the world’s best, as a result of the inclusion of Canadian stops on the World Cup circuit (Callaghan Valley and Canmore) in the lead up to the Vancouver Olympics. Since the Vancouver Olympics there have been no North America World Cups, and developing Canadians are once again forced to make the trip to Europe and Scandinavia to earn their international stripes.

This year’s convergence trip is modelled on a similar trip last season in which Lenny Valjas, who had a single World Cup start to his credit, was brought along to Scandinavia with the Senior World Cup team. Valjas exceeded all expectations, earning a top 10 in Drammen and a 15th place finish at the World Championships in Oslo, on his way to securing himself a permanent berth on the team. “Last year we had great success with Lenny. If we didn’t provide those opportunities for him last fall we might not have seen that progression,” Holland points out.

Selections for this convergence trip were made following the national team’s final camp in Whistler, and were made by CCC’s high performance committee in consultation with coaches from the national team and the four national training centres.

The three athletes were selected on the basis of past performance, the quality of their summer training, and various other training factors, including performance tests such as a time trial in Whistler. While CCC was prepared to send as many as five or six athletes, the selection committee eventually settled on three, a decision that Holland conceded was a challenging one: “It’s always difficult choosing between athlete A and athlete B – there’s always a reason to pick one or not pick another one.”

Turning now to the three athletes selected, 2-time Olympian and national team veteran Drew Goldsack (Rocky Mountain Racers) is coming off a great season on the domestic circuit last year, where he dominated the Teck NorAm Sprint Series and earned multiple victories and podiums at NorAms and US Super Tour events. “This will be my first opportunity to race overseas since my injury in 2009,” Goldsack noted, “and I’m really looking forward to the next month of racing.” After an injury-plagued season back in 2008-09 and a disappointing Olympics in Vancouver, Goldsack is looking for redemption: “My goal is to post some personal best performances on the World Cup, I’m hoping to come away with at least one top 10 result.”

At 30 years of age, Goldsack is clearly the elder statesman of the trip, but the World Cup potential he showed prior to his injury, combined with his dominant performance in NorAms last season, justifies the investment, Holland feels.

“We want to give Drew that chance, he earned it last year – and if you look at his history, if you go back to the 2007 World Championships in Sapporo, he was 6th in the Team Sprint with Kershaw, he’s had top 30s, and he’s one of the fastest guys in the country in sprinting.” If younger athletes want to earn a spot on trips like these, “someone’s got to knock him off,” Holland said.

Alysson Marshall (Larch Hills Nordic), who is in her first year on the Senior Development team, was a standout on the domestic circuit last year, making regular trips to the podium at the Canada Winter Games, NorAms and the Haywood Ski Nationals. Marshall also showed some international promise last year, achieving two top-20 finishes at the World U23 Championships in Otepaa, including a 12th in the classic sprint, and narrowly missing qualifying for the heats in the sprint event at the Otepaa World Cup the week prior.

“I am incredibly excited for this opportunity to race in Europe and get some more World cup starts!” Marshall recently wrote on her blog. And while, as Holland points out, World Cup level competition is new territory for her, “…she’s done really well in training – and in the race last week in Canmore she was third [behind Chandra Crawford and Perianne Jones] – so we’re just excited to have another woman who’s ready to go.”

Also selected is Kevin Sandau (Foothills Nordic), who is in his second year as a member of the national Senior Development Team. Sandau had one of his most successful seasons to date last year, notching a 5th place finish in the 15km F event at the World U23 Championships in Otepaa, and landing a slew of podiums at the 2011 Canada Winter Games and Haywood Ski Nationals.

Sandau is clearly delighted with his selection for the trip, “I’m really excited to have the chance to race overseas this month,” he told SkiTrax by email. Sandau enjoyed a productive summer of training, which included participating in number of joint camps with the Senior World Cup team, including a camp in Whistler last month where he placed 3rd in a rollerski time trial behind Devon Kershaw and AWCA teammate Graham Nishikawa. Known as a distance specialist, Sandau worked on his sprinting this past dryland season in an effort to become a more all around athlete.

By being selected for the convergence trip Sandau has already achieved one his major goals for the season, but now that he is going, he has already raised the bar. “This will be the earliest I’ve ever raced and I hope to use the FIS races in Sweden and Finland as prep for the World Cup mini-tour in Kuusamo. I’d be ecstatic to finish in top-20 at one of those races.”

All three athletes are clearly excited about the trip and hope to take full advantage of the opportunity to achieve new goals in skiing. For its part, without necessarily expecting a repeat of Valjas’ spectacular breakthrough last year, CCC’s hope nonetheless is that each will take their skiing to the next level. “It depends on the athlete where we’re putting that benchmark,” Holland added.

Fans of Canadian cross country skiing might be another matter, though, given the kind of results they have witnessed in the last two years. Hopes will be high that another new star will begin to emerge in a few weeks time.