OUA Championships Relay

Apologies for the length of time between blog posts; the author has been on Safari in Africa. Several lions, an elephant and a giraffe later, the UW Nordic Ski Team took to the trails at Glebe Park in Haliburton. On deck in the afternoon was the Women’s 3x2.5km Skate Relay as well as the Men’s 3x5km Skate Relay. Waterloo fielded just one team in each category, as holes in the Men’s lineup as a result of injury prevented the Waterloo B team from taking to the start line. The Women’s Team consisted of Kelly Skinner, Martha Sutton and Nellie Dow, all of whom put forth strong races in the morning. As Waterloo did not have enough women to make a relay team at OUA Championships last year, they set out with a high bib number and a vengeance, showing the rest of Ontario that women do, in fact, go to Waterloo, regardless of the rumours. Ed. Note – The male to female ratio at Waterloo is not as high as some claim. The most recent census lists only 1.5 males to 1 female. If you’re female, the odds are good, but the goods are usually odd. Lakehead again proved that they are the dominant force in OUA Nordic Skiing and took 1^st and 3^rd. Waterloo A, with Nellie Dow running the anchor leg scared ahead of All-Star Queens anchor Julie McVicar, managed an impressive 6^th place.

On the Men’s side, much deliberation was done for the relay team selection. After a lengthy round-table discussion, a Q&A session and a end-goal quantification meeting, it was decided that Cam Moore, Andrew Jeffrey and Kieran Jones would have the best shot at repeating the success of last year. The experienced and cagey veterans Moore and Jones rode lead and anchor respectively, while recently-drafted Andrew Jeffrey was sandwiched in the middle like a good Oreo cookie. Again, Lakehead was the class of the field, placing 1^st and 3^rd. The surprise of the day however, came from Waterloo A. Sitting in 4^th after the first leg, and then dropping back to 6^th and 15 seconds out of 5^th on the second leg, Jeffrey tagged off to Jones, who is of dubious skate-skiing value. Somehow, despite the fearsome firepower of each school’s anchor skier, Jones managed to close the gap to 5^th place Laurentian and engage in a fierce battle, culminating in a exciting sprint finish, which Jones disappointingly lost. While on the surface the 6^th place result is equal to the performance put on last year, the coaching staff was impressed that the men were able to finish 1 sec behind Laurentian A.

While clearly the men on the relay team have to take the overwhelming majority of the credit for their impressive finish, credit must be given to the enthusiastic cheering squad, including injured Derek Hartman and easily-identifiable Nolan Beanlands.

Pictures commemorating the epic event will follow shortly.