February 05, 2011 (Kelowna, B.C.) – Canadian National Teamer Perianne Jones scored back to back wins taking the women’s 2.7km freestyle Prologue, round two of the Haywood NorAm Mini-Tour in Kelowna. Andrea Dupont of the Rocky Mountain Racers, third in Friday’s sprint moved up into second at 20s behind Jones while Sarah Daitch (Fort Smith Ski Club) who was second yesterday edged out junior skier, Maya MacIsaac-Jones (RMR), by .03s for third.

“It was a tough race out there today,” Jones told SkiTrax post race. “2.7km is something that I’m really not used to racing, so the last 4 minutes were pretty painful.

“It was a great day out at Telemark, the sun was shining which made getting grip in some spots tricky so everyone was herring-boning,” Jones continued. “I just attacked the course from the start, and tried to hang on for dear life pushing all the way to the finish. I’m feeling good, and really excited to head to Europe on Wednesday with the rest of the World Champs Team.”

The men’s 3.5km skate race was very close as Stefan Kuhn (Canmore Nordic/NST) bested yesterday’s sprint winner Drew Goldsack (RMR/NST) by 1.3s, who in turn nipped Graham Nishikawa (AWCA) for the silver by .9s.

“The win was great to get. I have been training real hard the last 2-3 weeks getting ready for the World champs in Oslo Norway. My shape is starting to come around now. It was a very tight race today as expected,” said Kuhn by email to SkiTrax.

“The course is fantastic for a prologue which has some hard hills and down hills and a super hard finishing stretch. Some of the course was in the sun today which made for some of the hills to be slick and hard to climb and some of them where in the shade which you could just hammer up.

“I knew it would be tight,” continued the winner. “I just tried to ski a very balanced race not go out to hard and have some jam for the end and i guess it worked out, i barely squeaked in front of Drew by just over 1 second.”

Women’s results HERE.
Men’s results HERE.