January 5, 2009 (Canmore, AB) – Milaine Theriault (Foothills) has won the open women’s 15km pursuit race at the Canmore Nordic Center. The race originally scheduled for January 2 was postponed until today due to cold weather conditions. It was a tight race from start to finish between Theriault and National team member Brittany Webster who lead for much of the race, with Theriault prevailing to take the win by 0.3 of a second. Yesterday’s 10km skate winner Madeleine Williams of Edmonton Nordic, finished third 48 seconds back off the lead. “This was a big race and the only qualifier for distance skiers so it was important for sure,” said Theriault, who has been training independently throughout her comeback this summer. “I had a great summer of training and I’m glad that I will qualify to race at the World Cup in Whistler, and hopefully get my way back to racing on the World Cup circuit regularly again.”

Today’s race was a distance qualifier for the 2009 Canadian World Jr, Sr, and U23 teams.

“It was definitely much better than I expected today,” said Theriault, who finally got on skis for the first time in eight days yesterday. “I wasn’t even going to race, but I did and I pulled it out of I don’t know where. It was very enjoyable out there and maybe rest is a good thing.”

Graham Nishikawa came on strong in the skate portion of the men’s 30km pursuit to win by just 1 second over Quebec NTDC training partner Frederic Touchette. In third was Dan Roycroft of Arrowhead Nordic who consistently all race sat in the 3rd or 4th place position. The top 5 men were all separated by just 13.1 seconds. Alex Harvey was contending for the lead until a fall on the final downhill coming into the stadium and had to settle for 5th.

In the Junior women’s 10km pursuit, similar to the open women’s race it was a two-skier battle. Marlis Kromm of Foothills Nordic held on to win over Skibec’s Lauriane Ouellet by just 5.7 seconds. Catherine Auclair of Mont Ste. Anne was third 42.5 seconds off the lead. Graeme Killick of Banff Ski Runners cruised to victory in the Junior men’s category winning by over 2 minutes. David Greer of Whitehorse XC was second, followed closely by Foothills’ Jess Cockney.

Complete results are available here

Results (brief)

Women

1. Milaine Theriault (Foothills)
2. Brittany Webster (Highlands Trailblazers) NST – U23
3. Madeleine Williams (Edmonton) Team Fast Trax
4. Amanda Ammar (Edmonton) NST – U23
5. Shayla Swanson (Foothills) AB WC Academy

Men

1. Graham Nishikawa (Whitehorse) NTDC Quebec
2. Frederic Touchette (MSA) NST Quebec – U23
3. Dan Roycroft (Arrowhead) CVTC
4. Brent McMurtry (Foothills) NST – U23
5. Alex Harvey (MSA) NST Quebec – U23