Announcement

Eleven WMSC Athletes represent BC at U16 Nationals

Posted by Whistler Mountain Ski Club on Mar 25 2020 at 09:40AM PDT in 2020-2021 Season
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The U16 National Championships were held in Sun Peaks from March 10-14th and the WMSC had 11 proud athletes that made the selection criteria to be part of the 40 member BC Team.

The event started with an optional 3-day training camp that all but one of the WMSC team elected to take part in. Conditions were mostly sunny and cold and the team had 3 days of excellent SG, GS and SL training. The team had a day off before official timed SG training began on Monday March 9th. It was clear from the SG training times that there was stiff competition from Quebec, Ontario and Alberta teams so they knew they had their work cut out for them when racing began on Tuesday.

Conditions remained cold but athletes awoke to 12cm of fresh snow and strong winds. Course workers and athletes did a fantastic job to get snow off the track and the SG race went off as scheduled. The WMSC struggled to place any athlete into the top-10. Best results for WMSC were Sara Stiel in 14th in the ladies race and Sam Fuller in 18th in the men’s.

Athletes regrouped overnight and had their games faces on for Wednesday’s Giant Slalom race. What looked like a fabulous blue bird day had a surprise in store for everyone involved. A very strong wind developed through inspection and by the time the ladies started it had morphed into a strong gale force tailwind. The gusting wind pushed some of the women to faster speeds on the lower portion of the course than the previous days Super G race and it started to get dangerous.

After several DNF’s and a number of nasty crashes the jury decided to cancel racing and reschedule for the following day. It turned out to be a great decision as the wind died down significantly and an early groom cleared the loose snow that had been blown onto the course.

The GS race went off extremely well and the WMSC had a much better showing. Sara Stiel had 2 great runs to secure 3rd spot in the women’s race and Felix Shorter narrowly missed the top-10 landing in 11th place.

Sadly for everyone involved, Ski Cross and Slalom racing was cancelled due to growing concerns about COVID-19.

Podium results and top WMSC results are posted below:

Day 1 Event: SG
Ladies: 1st Kaila Lafreniere, 2nd Anne-Catherine Theberge, 3rd Emma Urness

Top WMSC: 14th Sara Stiel, (tie) 59th Ashely Perron, (tie) 59th Erin Husken, 62nd Meagan Doiron
DNF Laura Keogh

Mens: 1st Phillip Bergeron, 2nd Pierick Charest, 3rd Colton Bartholomew

Top WMSC: 18th Sam Fuller, 28th Jack Thomas, 30th Felix Shorter, 33rd Sascha Gilbert, 38th Milan Novak, 39th Duncan Ross

Day 2 Event: GS
Ladies: 1st Kaila Lafreniere, 2nd Maxim Parent, 3rd Sara Stiel (WMSC)

Top WMSC: 3rd Sara Stiel, 46th Erin Husken, 50th Laura Keogh, DNF Ashley Perron, DNF Meagan Doiron

Mens: 1st Pierick Charest, 2nd Gered Thompson, 3rd Phillip Bergeron

Top WMSC: 11th Felix Shorter, 19th Sascha Gilbert, 40th Duncan Ross, DNF Sam Fuller, DNF Jack Thomas, DNF Milan Novak

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