Quebec WC
One of my early season goals for this year was to qualify and race the World Cup races in Quebec and Canmore. Its a rare occasion for the World Cup circuit to come to North America, the last time being before the winter Olympics in Vancouver. Competing in a downtown city sprint only hours from Vermont was an experience I didn’t want to miss! Racing around the old city on a ribbon of snow past thousands of screaming fans was one of the coolest experiences I have had skiing and an incredible introduction to World Cup racing.
While I was a little nervous and star struck arriving to dinner at the team hotel Wednesday night that nervous energy quickly faded and was replaced with excitement for the upcoming event. It was really cool to have all the teams eating and staying at one hotel within walking distance from the race courses. Athletes could head down to the lobby to eat meals from the buffet throughout the day or easily head off on foot into the old city to walk around and sight see. My room on the 5th floor looked right out across at the trail and I could watch as the organizers prepared the fencing, sponsor banners, and tweaked all the camera angles for the coming races. Thursday morning I headed out to test skis, preview the course, and snap a few pictures.
View from the finish line look down towards the start lanes
Rows of wax trailers for the different countries
Coaches and techs working inside the USA trailer
And the lounge area nearby
Event organizers making sure no athletes would suffer from chapped lips
I ended up racing the team sprint on Friday with Reese Hanneman from APU. It was awesome to team up with Reese for the event as I usually have to compete against him on snow instead of as teammates. Despite some really soft tricky skiing (and my tanking the last half lap) we ended the day in 19th position and the second American team. We were both happy with this result and it was great to be able to mix it up with the top guys on course. Kris Dobie took some nice pictures of the team sprint on Friday here and Reese posted a blog from Quebec with much nicer pictures than I could ever take here.
Racing out of the start lanes in the team sprint (photo: Eric Packer)
And headed around the first corner (photo: Eric Packer)
Waiting for Reese in the tag zone between laps (photo: Eric Packer)
The individual sprint on Saturday also was a blast for me. I felt I skied well in the qualifier despite being seeded near the back of the pack and having to fight some soft snow and deep ruts. I ended the day 53rd, about 5 seconds out of qualifying. Although I was done skiing for the day I was able to get right next to the start/finish area with my athletes bib and get a second workout in cheering all the other US racers who made the rounds. It was so cool to see how many spectators showed up to cheer on the US athletes, it really felt like we were racing on our home turf! Some great photos of the sprint day can be found here and here and full results from the weekend here.
Sprint Qualifier (photo: Kris Dobie)
Overall the Quebec weekend was an incredible opportunity that I was glad to experience. Stayed tuned for more from Canmore!