OUA Qualifier #2/Eastern Canadian Championships
This past weekend the Waterloo Nordic Ski Team travelled to the Ottawa-Gatineau region of Eastern Ontario for the Ontario University qualifying races. In addition to being an OU race, it was also the Eastern Canadian Cross-Country Ski Championships. With around 650 participants in total, it was a very large race. Held at Mont-Blue at the foot of the Gatineau Hills, site of the infamous Keskinada World Loppet, expectations were high for both the quality of the course and the amount of snow. As it turned out, Ottawa has less snow than Waterloo, and therefore the course was run mostly along the Gatineau Parkway, the 401 of cross-country skiing. While being very wide and having some long, sloping uphills, the course also featured a large amount of very flat terrain.
The team took this in stride however, and showed up at the start Saturday morning ready to classic ski their respective distances. All members of the team showed great skill in navigating the not-so-technical course. On the mens side, Harry Seaton was on top form as usual, finishing 3rd place in a very strong field, skiing the 10 km course in a time of 29:22. On the womens side, Nellie Dow scored a very impressive 6th place, in a time of 26:34. Other members of the team had varying degrees of success during the day as well.
Sunday contained a mass start skate race, and opposed to the individual start race of the day before, promised to be chaotic with the large number of participants in each category. Mass starts almost always contain a large amount of broken equipment and falling. Luckily, most of the Waterloo ski team emerged from their mass starts unscathed, and ended the day with succesful results. The Open category skied a longer distance than the OUA category, and Seaton opted for the longer distance, finishing yet again in a strong 3rd place. Nellie Dow also opted for the longer distance, finishing in 10th place. In the Unversity categories, Kelly Skinner was the first women from Waterloo, finishing 21st in a time of 36:52. On the men’s side Neil de Laplante and Colin Rhodes skiied a tight battle the entire race, which culminated in a sprint, resulting in de Laplante with 15th and Rhodes 16th place, just inches apart. All around the ski team had a successful weekend, and is now in preparation for next weeks major event, the OUA Championships, held again in the Ottawa region.
