Season Wrap-up

Seeing as there is no longer any snow on the ground and your skis have been stored away for the summer (if not, you should probably get on that...), we here at UWNN thought it would be appropriate to give you a brief wrap-up on the year. Now we are not going to summarize all of the results and what happened on the year, as you can go back and read the previously posts for that info.

FUNFtathlon
The tradition of late season racing continued this year with the annual FUNFtathlon world championships. For those of you unaware of this event, it consists of 5 events: swimming ~1000 yards, running ~7.5 km, classic skiing/rollerskiing 5 km, biking ~15 km and skate skiing/rollerskiing 7.5 km. With all of these events done triathlon style.

This year, there was snow on the ground for the event, however this snow was fresh snow that had fallen on top of ground that had been saturated with rain. Therefore skiing was out of the question and rollerskiing was the choice. However, the ground was still white making the rollerskiing itself kind of depressing. Additionally, it was fairly cold, with the possibility of more snow in the air on the day of the event, resulting in less than ideal conditions.

There was low turnout for the event due to the combination of injuries, the conditions and athletes being out of town. This meant that there were only 3 contenders for the title of "FUNFtathlon World Champion". Tim R, Justin and a team of Alison and Katie took to the startline.

Tim, being in triathlon shape, was the first out the water, followed closely by Justin and Alison. From there Tim tried to maintain and grow his lead, while Justin tried to play catch up, and Alison was looking to the use the benefits of being in a team to go hard and get the extra rest while Katie worked some of the events.

Coming in off of the run, Tim had increased his lead slightly as they switched to classic rollerskiing. This is where the trouble began for Justin. Part way through his first lap he managed to lose his pole tip. After finding it and managing to get it back on his pole, he lost it again and proceeded without one tip. The tip was located and a new pole was given to Justin by the support staff, but the damage had already been done. Katie took over from Alison at this stage for the classic and bike portions of the event.

On to the bike Justin experienced more problems with a flat tire. From here Tim cruised to the victory, despised miserable conditions that evolved during the bike with wet snow falling directly into the athletes and coating them is snow.

Overall, this meant that Tim managed to maintain his title from the previous year and became a two-time "FUNFtathlon World Champion".


Athletic Banquet
The athletic banquet was the time to hand out some of the awards on the season and see the end of the careers for a few of the athletes on the team.

Most Valuable Skier(MVS): Alison and Nolan

The graduating athletes this year were Jess Stevenson and Derek Hartman.

Jess completes 3 seasons with the team and is graduating from Chemical Engineering. Her career will take her home to Calgary, where a full-time job awaits her.


Derek completes 5 seasons with the team and is graduating from Mechanical Engineering. He will be back at Waterloo next year for a Masters in Mechanical Engineering and will be helping out as an assistant coach with the ski team.