March 17, 2014 (Canmore, AB) – We are very pleased to announce the details of the WinSport Junior Ski Team for 2014-15. We hope that it will help retain junior skiers after they graduate from high school and we also hope to announce the head coach in the next couple weeks…

Introduction
TThe WinSport Junior Cross Country Ski Team (“WJCCST”) is a year round program for cross country skiers in the Learn to Compete and early Train to Compete stage of development, and racing in the Junior Men’s or Women’s or young Senior Men’s and Women’s categories. The athletes will have completed high school. The objective of the program is to provide top quality training and racing opportunities specific to athletes in this stage of development with the goal that these athletes will progress to a Cross Country Canada National Development Centre and the National Ski Team.

Background
This program is delivered by WinSport. WinSport is a not-for-profit winter sport institute that operates winter sport programs and facilities including Canada Olympic Park and the Olympic Oval in Calgary, the Bill Warren Training Centre at the Canmore Nordic Centre and the Beckie Scott High Performance Centre on the Haig Glacier.

Canmore Nordic Ski Club (“CNSC”) is a collaborative partner with WinSport in the delivery of the program. CNSC has been operating for more than 25 years and currently has over 600 members. It offers a full range of programs aligned with the Long Term Athlete Development Plan and Sport for Life model. CNSC athletes have raced successfully at the provincial, nationals and international level and have won medals at events ranging from the Alberta Youth Championships to the Olympic Winter Games.

The role of CNSC in this program is to provide organizational, planning and coaching expertise in the development and delivery of the program. In addition, the WJCCST will share waxing facilities and waxing personnel and will have a cooperative arrangement on some race trips and camps.    Members of the WJCCST are not expected to become members of the Canmore Nordic Ski Club.

Overview
The program has three key components:

(i) highqualitycoachingspecifictothejuniorleveltomaximizeperformanceandpotentialfor
success as a senior skier;
(ii) international racing experience (tentative for 2014/15); and
(iii) post secondary education support.

Read the full description here.