Team Canada wrapped up its World Cup selection trials in Canmore on Tuesday with a pair of mass start races, which were won by Megan Imrie and Nathan Smith.
With barely any snow in Scandinavia, the team was lucky to be at home in Canmore, where there has been skiing thanks to “Frozen Thunder,” a snow-saving operation. The team was racing to select two women and one man to join prequalified racers Imrie, LP Leguellec, Brendan Green, and Scott Perras on the World Cup at the end of the month. Team nominations have not been made public.
In the women’s mass start, the race came down to a sprint finish by three athletes who went through the race in wildly different styles. Imrie, who had only a single penalty, came away with the 1.3-second win over Rosanna Crawford, who put her first-ever four-stage clean race in the books. But just two seconds behind her was Zina Kocher, who managed to ski almost to the top despite having five shooting penalties. All three women were 2010 Olympians.
In Monday’s sprint, Imrie and Leguellec bested the fields, as reported on FasterSkier’s blog. In Tuesday’s mass start, however, the results were a bit more interesting. In the men’s race, Smith bested Smith by almost a minute, even though both men had two penalties over four shooting stages. Fellow national team member Marc-Andre Bedard finished third with three penalties, and junior Scott Gow – who finished second in the sprint – continued his strong run by placing fourth, just thirteen seconds behind Bedard.
