February 20, 2006 –

The final day of Keskinada Loppet activities was filled with heart-stopping finishes. Pleasant weather and low winds lent the festivities a helping hand and enabled organizers to provide complete runs under excellent conditions.

The Keski’s most popular event, the Bell 53km Freestyle turned into a particularly fine race. Among the men, David Zylberberg from Sudbury won by 2 centimetres over Quebec’s Steve Cyr. Up to the final sprint, which ended with Steve Cyr falling at the finish line, it was impossible to predict the winner. All the same, it was a fine improvement for Zylberberg, who had finished 20th in that same race in 2004. Third place went to France’s Lucien Bourgeois, who clocked 2 h 16 m and 32 s, which put him 3 m and 14 s behind the leader. He fought hard for his place on the podium, coming in only 1 s and 4 one-hundredths of a second ahead of Gordon Jewett from Canmore.

Among the women, Montreal’s Dasha Gaizova was the winner, with a time of 2 h 29, after winning the Atomic Sprints the night before. Sarah Peters from Navan, who had finished third in yesterday’s sprints, came in an easy second, followed by Jacqui Benson from Prince George, British Columbia.

In the Bell 29 km, Gatineau’s Bruno Cyr won the top prize. Last year’s ninth place racer won this one with a lead of 1 m 23 s over his closest rival, Éric Rouleau, also from Gatineau. Éric Rouleau had also finished second in yesterday’s 25.5 km Craft Classic. Michael Vieira from Ottawa, winner of yesterday’s 25.5 km, came in third.

Résultats 2006

Among the women, Colleen Mortimer of Ottawa finished the race in 1 h 28, slightly more than 6 minutesahead of Gatineau’s Karine Labonté. Heidi Underwood from New-York came in third.

Although there were more than 20 different nationalities, almost all of the prizes went to Canadians in Sunday’s two big races, the only exceptions being France’s third place finish in the 53 km and the third place finish in the 29 km by an American woman skier.

For the Karhu 10 km, Stéphanie Drolet, Mareck Beaudoin-Bacon and Caroline Drolet won the top prizes for the girls. The three of them had also won the Atomic Sprints in the 14-15 years category, though not in the same order. Sam Morse and Chad Day from the United States beat Mathieu Fortin from Mont-Tremblant among the men. The latter had also placed third in Saturday’s 25.5 km.

The 2 km Mini-Keski, for which His Excellency Daniel Jouanneau, Ambassador of France, rang the starting bell, had no fewer than 274 participants, most of whom were aged 8 or under. They had to ski through castles and face musketeers before reaching the prized hot chocolate kiosk. The theme for this activity was medieval France, the host country for the event’s 28th edition.

Because of the course changes, official results for the 51km Classic only came out today. Among the women, the winners were Marcia Birkigt from Alberta, Sara Nielsen from Whitehorse and Marg Fedyna from Edmonton. Among the men, Phil Shaw from Rosemère, Stefan Desfosses from Ste-Adèle and Stig Morten Fakstad from Lillehammer, Norway, were the top winners.

Despite a very difficult start to the weekend because of the inclement weather, organizers managed to pull off an event that met skiers’ expectations. With their main focus on the skiers’ safety, the Keskinada jury had to opt to modify yesterday’s major runs and delay the starts times.

Regardless of the setbacks, the new Keskinada activities, including the Camp de base / Swix Giant Ski competition, the Salomon Women Will Ski Trek on Thursday night and the 16 km Classic were very much appreciated by the participants.

Keski Board Chairman Claude Laramée indicated that he was most impressed with the work done by the volunteers under difficult conditions and very happy with the number of registrants, which actually reached 3,051, with participants from 24 different countries.