UBC Nordic Year-End Review!
All good things come to an end, and the Nordic Ski Team’s season finished in style in March at the Canadian Ski Nationals, held at Nakkertok Nordic in Cantley, QC. Four UBC athletes made their way East to compete in the team’s biggest race of the season where we threw down some big efforts and enjoyed connecting with athletes from across the country. The race schedule included a sprint, two middle distance races, a team sprint and a long-distance race.
The team tackled the week with good energy and came home satisfied with solid results and tired legs. Alia Sanger impressed with her gutsy racing and dedicated vlogging and made Nakkertok’s steep uphills and technical downhills look easy! Her positive attitude and contagious smile kept the team pumped up and ready to roll all week long. Claire Grall-Johnson threw down some strong efforts, managing to crack the top 10 CCUNC a few times and finished the week with a 9th place overall in the 30km classic mass start, forcing her to grudgingly admit that she may even enjoy ski racing when the course is longer than 1.3 kilometres.
Alia making Dirk’s Dive look easy (Jo-Ann Holden photo)
Claire feeling the burn up Jackrabbit Hill (Tim Austen photo)
Carrington Pomeroy was thrilled to race on his hometown trails and managed to pull off some excellent performances even on days when he forgot a few minor things… such as ski boots… But his determination and strategic racing earned him an impressive 10th place finish in the CCUNC category in the 15km skate pursuit, marking his final race as a UBC skier. Katia Lumb was able to join the team for the second half of the week to give us a clinic in distance classic racing, finishing 20th in a stacked Junior Women’s field, led by two Norwegian Junior National Team members. Her famous striding technique paid off on the course’s long “Power Line” uphill where she was able to reel in the competition.
Cary moving at the speed of light, probably (Jo-Ann Holden photo)
Katia getting explosive while anchoring the UBC team sprint (Rob Smith photo)
A big highlight was Claire and Katia competing together in the CCUNC team sprint and coming 7th against some of the strongest women in the country. We’re looking forward to putting more teams on the start line next year in both male and female categories.
Katia and Claire (centre, blue suits) with all CCUNC team sprint female athletes
Once again, we’re so thankful that Hollyburn Ski Club worked hard in the wax room (“room” is a generous word) to prepare some speedy skis for our athletes. Hopefully the wax techs can take the summer off and decrease their caffeine consumption a little bit until next winter.
All results can be found on Zone 4 at https://zone4.ca/event/9216c3d0-0e24-11e9-96ea-0a45a88024d8/
Nationals concluded the first full year that our team has been running after our hiatus in 2017/18 and we wouldn’t be here without the help of some important people!
Cypress mountain has provided us with the opportunity to ski on their awesome cross-country trails, where we also get to go head-to-head with the other skiers in Vancouver at the beloved Tuesday night races. Hollyburn Ski Club has been instrumental in giving us advice, wax help, baked goods, cheering and a warm welcome to the Vancouver ski community. We’re very proud to be a Thunderbird Sport Club and look forward to keep making new connections in the coming years.
Finally, a special thank you to Nico Petch, Jake Weaver and Dave Lumb for their guidance, wisdom and love of skiing which helped us through rainy weeknight workouts and hectic race weekends throughout the term.
Stay tuned to our Instagram and Facebook to see what our athletes are up to this summer, and for our plans for the 2019/20 season. We are very excited that Nationals are being hosted by Sovereign Lake Nordic Ski Club in Vernon, BC next year and look forward to resuming team training again in September.
Bonus picture from our Year-End Athletic Banquet! The team brought home the Student Leadership Award (Carrington Pomeroy) and Executives of the Year Award.
Potluck Dish of the Month:
It’s not quite a potluck dish, but the famous Kettleman’s bagels in Ottawa did not disappoint the Vancouver natives!
Quote of the Month
“I’m really glad that there won’t be much double-poling on this course tomorrow, mostly striding” – Alia Sanger, while pre-skiing the course for the *skate* sprint on the eve of the race.
Farewells
Two of our favourite 6-foot-something, Geography-loving team members graduated from UBC this term and we’re still not quite sure what we’re going to do without them…
Blakely Browne graduated from Geography with a Minor in Spanish after four years of skiing, peanut-butter eating, massive gym gainz and making people laugh with his swanky dance moves and kind soul. Blakely was the most experienced team member and we will greatly miss his wisdom, mad double-pole sprint skills and bright smile. We wish him the best wherever the future takes him, and we hope it involves lots of Tahini sauce and adventurous bike rides.
Carrington Pomeroy, our beloved Team Lead and all-around cool guy has finished his Masters in Atmospheric Science/Physical Geography and has left Vancouver in order to work at the Canadian Centre for Climate Services, where he will be attempting to extinguish all the forest fires in the world (or something like that). The Nordic Ski Team would not exist without Cary, as he was instrumental in getting the team back on its feet. His humorous emails, skiing expertise, calm demeanor and positive outlook made him a near-perfect leader and we’re very proud to say that he departed in fashion by taking home the TSC Student Leadership Award at the Year End Athletic Banquet!
Athlete Profile
Introducing our incoming Club Lead… Mykal Bakker-Westeinde!
YOB/Racing Category: 1999/Senior Men
Hometown: Chelsea, Quebec
What are you studying: Engineering Physics
Skate or Classic: Classic.
Favourite spot you’ve xc skied and why: Canmore because mountains
Go-to breakfast meal: Oatmeal or yogurt and granola
Favourite seasoning/sauce: Pesto on everything
Favourite studying building: The nest
Smooth or crunchy pb: This question is of great importance to me. If it’s not crunchy it’s not peanut butter
Trip/race you’re most looking forward to this year: Bagging mount Everest while in Nepal (or pretending to)
If you could go to the olympics for one sport (other than xc): Whitewater kayaking or short-track speed skating
Favourite board game: Catan
Fun facts: I cannot recite the alphabet backwards faster than @aliasanger can