Canmore World Cup Courses: Pain and Suffering Are Waiting!

3.75 Olympic and Centennial Loops (to be used for 15k (W) and 30k (M) classic mass starts on Saturday.

These are essentially two shorter loops that use portions of the Olympic loop. Once gain, they are of the “up then down” variety. In fact, skiing these is arguably harder because the parts of the loops which have been eliminated are the flat ones. The grade for much of the climb might be described as just shallow enough that if your wax is good and you are relatively fresh you can stay in the track and run up them. There is not much free speed or rolling terrain. Read long, tough, grinding climbs with relatively fast but non technical downhills.

Sprint Course (For the Sprint Relay on Sunday)

This course places a premium on being able to go up short steep climbs at the same time as one is negotiating a corner. From the start, the skier does about 150 m of flat, leading into a 180 degree lefthand and uphill turn requiring some offset. A short downhill takes one into the next uphill pitch, this time roughly 180 degrees to the right. A more gradual uphill section of about 75m follows the uphill corner. A fast down hill takes one to the last 180 degree corner, this time to the right. While there is a bit of uphill to slow people down coming into it, this corner still happens at fairly high speed. This is followed about 75 m of gradual downhill and then 100m of gradual uphill straight ahead to the finish. From a spectators point of view this course is great. Virtually everything can be seen from the stadium. The course zigzags above it, first going up, and then coming down.