July 19, 2011 – The National Winter Sport Association (NWSA) was established through the foresight and donation of the Disbrow family. This generous support of the NWSA is aimed at assisting coaches, athletes and competitive racing programs in Canada; the long-term goal is focused on boosting and sustaining Canada’s performance level and ranking at the international level. During the past four seasons, the NWSA funding has contributed close to one million dollars to enhancing the delivery of club and National Development Centre (NDC) racing programs. The NWSA’s platform of support has a primary target to help professionalize and expand Canada’s network of cross-country ski coaches. The NWSA is also committed to allocating some funding support to selected developing athletes who demonstrate potential towards long-term international level development and a clear financial need.

For the 2011-12 season, the NWSA has approved a substantive contribution of over $250,000 to again assist cross-country ski development in Canada. The overall funding disbursement to each of the four priorities set out in the request for proposals was similar to the 2010-11 season. Given the diversity and extensive number of applications this year, the following guidelines were adapted in selecting the recipients clubs, NDCs and athletes:

1. Club Grants priority #1: The purpose of the funding in this category is to provide coaching support to clubs with proven potential to develop competitive athletes at the national and international level. All applications were considered based on the past history, current status and future potential of the club as well as the identified coaching candidates. The bulk of the funding support in this category was allocated to ‘Established Clubs’ who currently have full time coaches and a proven track record of developing top level junior racers who progress to the Junior and Senior NST programs. ‘Developing clubs’ were considered for support primarily based on the quality of the plan as presented in the applications.

2. Coach Development and NDC Funding priorities #2 and #4: There is a limited amount of funding for priority #2 – advancing the education of professional coaches; and priority #4 – funding assistance for Cross Country Canada’s National Development Centres (NDCs). The need to hire more NDC coaches was weighed against the need to adequately train those coaches to ensure a consistently high level of support to NDC athletes. Many of the coaches in the NDCs would benefit from ongoing professional development in the form of mentoring/apprentice positions and more formal coaching courses. NDC applications were evaluated based primarily on the professional development plans for the identified coaches.

3. Athlete subsidies: The aim of this year’s subsidies to recipients is to support athletes at the development level who have demonstrated ‘performance on demand’ results either internationally or domestically at targeted events where all athletes were engaged in head to head competition. The targeted events used for this purpose were the U23/WJC trials and the National Championships. The statement of need and the quality of the submission were considered in the evaluation. As a guideline, athletes considered were expected to be achieving the performance progression for their age based on the International

– Senior (23+) – Significant level of international performance at U23 championships (top 10), World Senior Championships, World Cup or Olympic Winter Games (i.e. medals, top-12). This level of performance would in most cases mean these athletes are currently on the Senior NST and are already receiving Sport Canada Senior Carding.

– U23 – significant level of international and national performance, specifically at World U23 Championships (top 12) and possibly World Cups (top 30). With some exceptions, athletes should already be on Senior NST and receiving Sport Canada Carding (1st yr seniors were considered differently)

– Junior – a) International performance at World Juniors (top 30); b) best performances at the WJC trials and/or National Championships based on these races being the key focus for this age group where all athletes competed in the same competition.

Organizations & Athletes Selected for Funding:

Clubs:
– Nakkertok
– Skibec
– Cross Country Yukon (Whitehorse Ski Club)
– Canmore Nordic
– Fondeurs Laurentides
– Telemark
– Rocky Mountain Racers
– Sovereign Lake
– Whistler Nordics
– Caledonia Nordic
– Monteriski

NDC’s:
– Callaghan Valley Training Centre
– Thunder Bay NDC
– Alberta World Cup Academy

Athletes:
– Annika Hicks
– Olivia Bouffard-Nesbitt
– Michelle Workun-Hill
– Maya Macisaac-Jones
– Dahria Beatty
– Heather Mehain
– Raphael Couturier
– Patrick Stewart-Jones
– Alexis Turgeon
– Sebastien Townsend
– Zach Holland
– Martin Schrama
– Bob Thompson
– Chris Klebl