2013 Ski Nationals Day 2

The first day of interval racing at Ski Nationals 2013 featured an interval start, 10 km skate race.  The CVTC scored one podium finish, despite focusing primarily on classic skiing this year.  Sebastien Dandurand, a former nordic combined athlete, battled throughout the race and finished 3rd, less than 10 seconds off first place, in the junior category.  This result placed Dandurand 32nd overall on the day.

The event was dominated by Canadian biathletes, just coming off their National Championships, which were last week in Whistler.  There are also a number of top American university skiers in Whistler for the event, making the men's field 145 athletes deep - one of the largest fields in recent history.

The rest of the CVTC athletes had strong but not outstanding results.  In the senior ranks, Geoffrey Richards placed 35th (13th U23), Martin Schrama finished 54th (one of his best results of the season), Sebastiend Townsend finished 62nd and Yannick Lapierre had a rough day, finishing 85th overall.

The junior athletes did not fare much better: Colin Ferrie was 9th (73rd overall), Paul Dupuis was 18th (100th overall), Fred Weaver was 16th in first-year junior men (107th overall) and Stefan Sander-Green finished 20th (110th overall).

As Coach Chris Manhard noted, it was a mediocre day overall, but he expects all the athletes to perform much better in the classic event on Tuesday. 

Full results are at www.zone4.ca