November 01, 2016 (Canmore, AB) – Jesse Cockney from Foothills Nordic and Dahria Beatty of Whitehorse topped their respective fields today in the Classic Sprint Qualifications today on Day 2 at Frozen Thunder. The qualifier was the first of two races used for selection for the upcoming first period World Cups in December.

Cockney bested Lenny Valjas (Team Hardwood) by a 4-second margin with Graeme Killick (Ptarmigan Nordic) in third – both Valjas and Killick have berths on the World Cup team.

In the women’s race Beatty finished a little over a second ahead of local skier Annika Hicks (Canmore) and American Kelsey Phinney (Sun Valley) in 3rd.

The tough CL sprint featured two laps of about 750m that included two large uphills. Temperature was about -2C, and the snow was hard, however conditions were on the slow side due to fresh snow overnight.

The race was a normal sprint qualifier however new classic sprint rules were in place with a ‘striding only’ zone on the main climb of the course to prevent skiers from double poling the course.

All skis were waxed as part of a central ski depot program run by the National Ski Team to ensure that everyone was on the same wax and that there was no waxing advantage or disadvantage. This rule was also put in place to help skiers and teams reduce racing costs. Temperatures remained close to zero for most of the day with generally cloudy weather, keeping the tracks fairly consistent.

The sprint heat format was a Kings Court format consisting of three heats where everyone in the race competes based on their qualifying time in heats of four.

All categories – men, women, juniors, and seniors – raced “together” in the rounds with the best two skiers moving up to the next faster heat, and the slowest two skiers moving down to the next slower heat. This provided good quality racing in each heat, and let all skiers have a solid race with hard efforts.

Not all skiers raced the heats as many elected to only ski the qualifier or a heat or two depending on what their focus was for training. When the dust settled Julien Locke of Black Jack won the men’s race followed by Brian McKeever (Lifesport) in second with John Hegman of Sun Valley in third.

The USA’s Phinney prevailed over Beatty in the women’s final despite an early lead and several challenges by the Canuck who settled for second with Hicks third and Andrea Dupont (Rocky Mountain Racers) 4th.

Shaw television was also on hand to broadcast the race live on TV!

Qualifications here.

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