March 18, 2015 (Thunder Bay, ON) – Just when Thunder Bay was thinking that spring had arrived Mother Nature sent cold weather and high winds to Lappe for a deceiving cold -6 degree C. day. Fortunately there was brilliant sunshine, so if you could stay out of the gusts the weather was tolerable for the classic, interval start races.

Emily Nishikawa © CCC

The racing continued to be very competitive but the arrival of Emily Nishikawa and Ivan Babikov after racing the World Cups in Oslo last weekend, added an increased performance level to the competition.

In the women’s race it was a battle between National Team skiers Emily Nishkawa of Whitehorse and Nakkertok’s Perianne Jones, who has recently showed increased success in distance competitions.

Nishkawa built up a large lead 25 second lead on the first lap over Jones, but on the 2nd 5k either the jetlag and skiing 30k on Sunday caught up with Nishkawa, or Jones went into another gear as there was only a 2 second gap at the finish.

Cendrine Browne came through in 3rd for Fondeurs Laurentide.

(l-r) Annika Hicks, Emily Nishikawa, Perianne Jones, Cendrine Browne © CCC

For the men it was a similar story as Ivan Babikov of Foothills Nordic returned to competition at the Nationals. Ivan built up a 7 second lead over fellow World Cup skier Graeme Killick over the first 7.5k and increased the lead to 25 seconds at the finish.

Ivan Babikov © CCC

In 3rd place it was nice to see Frédéric Touchette of Université Laval returning to the podium. Frédéric had been a rival of Alex Harvey as a junior and has struggled with several medical issues in recent years that have limited his performance levels.

Jenn Jackson © CCC

In the Junior Women’s race, Jenn Jackson of Team Hardwood claimed gold, less than 3 seconds off bronze in the Open Women’s competition. Second went to Rocky Mountain Racers’ Maya MacIssac-Jones and third was Annah Hanthorn of Whitehorse.

Annah Hanthorn lunges at the line © CCC

In the Junior Men’s competition it was Joey Foster of Team Hardwood destroying the field, with a 1 minute 41 second lead over Alexis Dumas of Skibec. Third was Ricardo Izquierdo-Bernier of Fondeurs Laurentide.

Marie Corriveau of Mont Ste. Anne dominated the Junior Girls race with a 1 minute and 25 second lead over Hannah Mehain of Sovereign Lake with Eliza-Jane Kitchen of Hollyburn 3rd 1 second later.

For Junior Boys Antoine Blais of Skibec was 1st followed by Ty Godfrey of Canmore and Ryan Jackson of Team Hardwood.

The Juvenile Girls podium were all from B.C. with Kimberley’s Molly Miller 1st, Alana Brittin of Revelstoke 2nd and Anna Goodwin of Hollyburn 3rd.

In the Juvenile Boys race Antoine Laforte of Skibec was 1st, followed by Team Hardwood’s Finn Dodgson and Canmore’s Sam Hendry.

There were 14 Canadian Universities and Colleges represented as part of the CCUNC category. Frédéric Touchette, who was 3rd in the Open Men’s race took top honours for U Laval and Kendra Murray of Carleton was the women’s champ.

On a day when several of the top Canadian Para-Nordic athletes were winning World Cup gold in Norway a good contingent of Para-Nordic skiers were at Lappe to determine the winners of the Canadian Championships.

In the standing class Gabriel Denis of Iroquois Falls was the winner in the men’s race while Chelsea Nordiq’s Caroline Bisson claimed the women’s title.

In the sitski competition, Ethan Hess of Vancouver’s Nordic Racers was the men’s champ and another B.C. competitor Emily Suchy of Revelstoke won the women’s gold.

Results
CCUNC Results
Para-Nordic Results