February 05, 2016 (Cantley, Quebec) – Mother Nature hasn’t been kind to the Outaouais region this year. Lots of rain, warm temperatures and freezing rain made their appearance in the week leading up to the Haywood Eastern Canadian Championships. The weather was nice on day 1 (Feb. 5), a few degrees below zero degrees C. and lots of sun. The trails were in great shape, very, hard packed with a bit of sugar snow, but as can be seen in the background of this Newfoundland team pic, anywhere off the snow was much more suited to skates, than skate skis.

Knute Johnsgaard © CCC

Haywood Eastern Canadian Championships, Buff Sprint, Nakkertok Ski Club, Cantley, Quebec

Today’s races were skate sprints, part of the Buff sprint series. The wax tech’s were busy preparing all sorts of skis for the conditions. In the morning’s qualifier Knute Johnsgaard was first, just ahead of Skinouk’s Simon Lapointe and Nakkertok’s Patrick Stewart-Jones.

On the women’s side it was Rocky Mountain Racer’s Maya Macisaac-Jones that had the top result, ahead of Dahria Beatty of Whitehorse and Jenn Jackson of Team Hardwood.

The top juniors, Joey Foster of Team Hardwood and Marie Corriveau of Mont Ste. Anne, both raced in the senior class to better prepare for upcoming races at the u23/Junior World Championships.

Qualifications

Maya Macisaac-Jones kept up her pace from the morning qualifier to fairly easily reach the women’s final. In the 2nd semi-final Jackson and  Beatty traded the lead back and forth with Jackson taking the semi by 4/10ths of a second.

Sr. Women's podium © CCC

In the final it was Macisaac-Jones setting the pace with Jackson and Olivia Bouffard-Nesbitt of Fondeurs Laurentide close behind until the final hill. As they were going up the climb there was a misstep by Jackson that allowed Olivia to move ahead. But Jackson managed to fight back on the last kilometre to grab 2nd place over Bouffard-Nesbitt. “Despite not knowing how to offset, I still duked it out for a nice 2nd place finish at Easterns today,” said Jackson.

Coming into the race the most in form skate sprinter in Canada would be Julien Locke of Black Jack ski club. Locke was the sprint winner in the last Buff event at Lappe and was 3rd in the same event at the U.S. Nationals also in January.

Locke just edged out the win over Johnsgaard in the first semi. The 2nd semi was a close contest and saw a tangle between two Skinouk teammates, Simon Lapointe the 2nd qualifier, and Alexis Turgeon which helped decide the ranking. Coming through in first was Jesse Cockney of Canmore, followed 3/10ths of a second later by Andy Shields of Lappe and Patrick Stewart-Jones.

Sr. Men's podium © CCC

In the final Johnsgaard set a fast early pace, but on the last hill Locke moved into another gear, to hold off the rest of the field on the final straightaway. A second and a half separated the six finalists, with Sebastien Boehmler-Dandurand of Canmore 2nd and Cockney of Foothills 3rd. Local club skier Patrick Stewart-Jones made a strong effort at the finish, despite being limited by a pole broken earlier in the heat.

Jr. men's podium © CCC

In the Jr. men’s race it was Philippe Boucher of Skibec coming through with a fairly comfortable win. The next three were quite close together Boucher’s over teammate Antoine Blais placing second with Ryan Jackson of Hardwood just nipping out Nakkertok’s Maks Zechel for 3rd.

The Jr. Women’s race had a close race for the medals as the top three finished within 0.9 seconds. The winner was Sadie White of Big Thunder, followed by Hollyburn’s Katie Weaver of Hollyburn and Zoë Williams of Nakkertok.

Sadie White audio interview

This weekend’s races are also important for qualifying for Ski Tour Canada 2016 that starts up just down the road on Mar. 1st.

COC leaders based on STC selection criteria at the end of today (athletes only count once in a category):
Overall leaders (best 6 races): Kevin Sandau, Cendrine Browne
Distance leaders (best 6 races): Brian McKeever, Frédérique Vézina
Sprint Leaders (best 3 races): Bob Thompson, Andrea Dupont

Sprint Heat results

Sprint Final results

As well as the sprint competitions, there were many more younger skiers particpating in a prologue event on the beautiful day.

Larger size version of the picture

Prologue results

Para-Nordic results

Saturday features short distance skate races.