This week in Canmore, the Bow Valley will host about 200 athletes from 19 countries at the International Ski Federation (FIS) Cross-Country World Cup, the 11th stop on the international docket and the first time in North America in eight years.
The races include 10 k freestyle individual starts on Friday, freestyle sprints on Saturday, 20 k classic mass starts on Sunday, a day of rest, then classic sprints on Tuesday, Feb. 13, at the Canmore Nordic Centre Provincial Park.
Two women who know the courses well there — Olympians and former Canadian National Team members Chandra Crawford and Dasha Atkins (formerly Gaiazova) — will also be at the races as spectators and commentators, respectively.
Crawford will juggle her time between the VIP Suite and a Fast & Female event in Canmore. At the same time, Atkins will call the races with longtime Canadian World Cup, World Championships, and Olympics announcer Randy Ferguson.
Chandra Crawford: Mom, Keynote Speaker, and Business Connector
Sixteen years ago, Crawford entered the 2008 Canmore World Cup with an Olympic gold medal from the 2006 Torino Games. Born in Canmore, she had high hopes for her hometown races. Some could call it pressure, but she made a point of relaxing and having fun. Easier said than done, but a friend and fellow ski racer named Magda Genuin helped.
Genuin was from Agordo, Italy, a tiny town surrounded by the mighty Dolomite Mountains. Like Canmore, a mountain town in the Canadian Rockies, it was the home to three peaks called the “Three Sisters” — tre sorelle. In Canmore, these mountains are called Big Sister, Middle Sister, and Little Sister.
“Magda and I just felt like we resonated on this level that we are mountain people,” Crawford recalled. “Ski racing is great, but if you can get out in the mountains for days and days, that’s the best.”
The two skiers didn’t speak much of each other’s language, yet they laughed and chatted over two pots of tea at Communitea Cafe in Canmore, with American Kikkan Randall joining them for some of it.
“I just felt so relaxed and happy with my friends,” Crawford said.
The next day, she felt at ease entering her signature race: the World Cup freestyle sprint.
“I felt just felt full of peace and love and excited to do my absolute strongest strides, my process goals, take turns better, and hammer the snow like my legs were like a staple gun,” she recalled. “I had my own goals, and my intensity was intrinsic without pressure from the outside.”
“I managed my tactics and passing on the downhill and got to the finish line first,” she added. “Magda got a bronze medal and got to be on the podium. I only had less than ten trips to the podium in my career, and she had a handful, but it was a pretty special day to be up there together in Canmore.”
Retired from ski racing since 2014, Crawford is a keynote speaker with an MBA from the University of Calgary. She’s married, has four kids ranging from age 2 to 7, and is involved with the Canmore World Cup through a contract with the Alberta World Cup Society, which is hosting the races. She has been supporting business development and marketing of the World Cup by connecting corporate Calgary contacts with VIP opportunities at the races. As the founder of Fast & Female, a Canadian charity, she remains connected to its mission of keeping girls healthy and active in sports.
Crawford started competing at age of 16 in 2001. Over the next 13 years of professional ski racing, she learned to control her mindset and make the most of her career. She remembered looking at the 2006 Olympic schedule and asking her sports psychologist how to prepare for her race—the skate sprint—on Day 12 of the Olympics.
“I raced a distance race at the very start of the Olympics, and then I was just staring at the days like, ‘There’s way too many of them!’ ” she said.
Her sports psychologist advised that she have fun and enjoy a meal with her family, which she did. They laughed over a “giant Italian meal and were tourists for a few hours,” she recalled. “That helped me to relieve so much stress, to not just be sitting in my hotel room getting too worked up.”
Her tips for racers in Canmore, some of whom may be in North America for the first time, included maintaining perspective. She emphasized that “mental toughness is mental preparation,” meaning that if everything goes haywire and not as planned, you can still give your absolute best. For her, it helped to visualize all the things that could go wrong before a race and plan for it.
She established her own process goals and focused on what she could control, including how she refocused and relieved stress.
“I just went through that experience [in Canmore] with so much love and gratitude for being there with a perspective of, I’m not my results; I’m a community member,” she said. “My identity is bigger than my results.”
For spectators, she said it’s going to be a blast.
“You’re going to fit right in and have a great time in Canmore. This is a pocket of the world that is extraordinarily fit and forever young,” she said.
Crawford’s mother used to make alliances in the stands, cheering for another family’s skier in exchange for them cheering for hers. Crawford urged spectators to forge similar friendships.
“My mom has always been my #1 cheerleader, no matter what sport I was doing she was so supportive in me following my dreams. Driving me to nowhere’sville Alberta for a ski or biathlon race. Watching me swim back and forth in a pool. Chasing a soccer ball across a field, she was always there with a hug on the good and bad days! My parents were both really active and had a passion for the outdoors, and our adventures were always filled with great stories and good snacks to keep the kids entertained! Hiking around Lake O’Hara or back country skiing at Mosquito creek, there was always some outdoor activities on the weekend and through the summer. Even now my mom has been setting an example that at any age you can achieve great things. Taught me to be a strong women who isn’t afraid to stand up for her self. Love you mom!”
“The town loves to welcome you, host big events, and show off our local goods,” she added. “Enjoy the massive nature, and let your full passion for cross-country skiing out. This is the place. These are your people. It’s going to be so fun.”
Dasha Atkins: Mom, Coach, Professor, Financial Planner, and World Cup Commentator
Also a professional Canadian skier from 2001 to 2014, Atkins lives in Calgary and is a mother of two children, ages 6 and 2. A wealth manager and financial planner, she teaches finance at the University of Calgary during the week and coaches masters skiers with the Space Dogs Ski Club, which she founded in 2016, on the weekends.
After retiring from ski racing, she earned an MBA from HEC Montréal, during which time she stayed with her friend, Randy Ferguson.
Ferguson had announced at many of her races during her career. In 2020, she was asked to commentate with him at the Cross-Country World Cup Finals in Canmore. The races were called off a week before due to the pandemic, and her gig was canceled.
Two years later, Atkins got another opportunity as an announcer at the 2022 Masters World Cup in Canmore.
“That was intense because they have, like, a million categories, a million races, so it was a whole week, pretty full on,” she recalled. “I was there for nine days commentating, and it was so much fun; it was great, I really enjoyed it, and they called me back, so I must not have done the worst job ever.”
This will mark her first time commentating with Ferguson.
“I’m very excited because I’m going to be with someone I know really well who knows the sport well,” Atkins said of the four-day schedule. “We can talk in French, especially given how well the French team is doing. I’m like, ‘Yes! I can speak in French.’ It’s going to be great.”
She noted the difficulty of the race courses in Canmore, which include 1.3-kilometer sprint and 5-kilometer distance loops.
“It’s the same course that I used to race many, many times, so I can sympathize a lot with how hard it will be,” she said. “It’s going to be a nice contrast to Theodore [Wirth] Park, where they’re racing in Minneapolis [the following weekend], so it will be interesting to see how that works to a lot of skiers’ abilities. Can they shine in both? That’s the question.”
Conditions could be fast and firm, especially in the mornings, as temperatures had been warmer than usual in Canmore in January.
“There’s enough snow—it’s great, but it’s really transformed … it’s been T-shirt weather,” Atkins said on Jan. 31, about a week and a half before the races.
Over the weekend, Canmore received more than 10 centimeters (4-5 inches) of fresh snow and had its snowmaking machines blowing.
“The new snow should give everything a shiny new look. Our trails are holding up well thanks to the snow we made in Nov/Dec,” Norbert Meier, the events chair of the Alberta World Cup Society, wrote in an email on Feb. 2. “We also hope Minneapolis has a successful weekend. The excitement building there can almost be felt here in Canmore!”
“Honestly, the fans are going to be crazy,” Atkins said. “I’m sure the same in Minneapolis. So what we don’t have in snow, we’ll make up for in cheering spirit and party atmosphere. I’m sure about that.”
On Saturday, Feb. 3, Atkins and her Space Dogs masters skiers coincidentally met with Norwegian standout Johannes Høsflot Klæbo and Swedish superstar Linn Svahn on the trails and got photos with them.
As for her tips for athletes, she said, “Just enjoy the culture. It’s a very friendly, athlete-friendly town. Everybody loves skiers and gets excited seeing all the jackets from other countries in town. It’s going to be a really cool experience for Europeans who are in North America for the first time.”
Chandra and Dasha’s Favorite Canmore Hot Spots
Best meal of your life: Crazyweed (Chandra and Dasha)
Best for spicy tuna: Wild Orchid Bistro (Dasha)
Best takeout: Arashi Ramen and Communitea (Chandra)
Best café and coolest vibes: Communitea and Harvest, very hippy/ski vibes in both (Dasha); Bicycle Cafe has the best coffee, plants, and people (Chandra); Eclipse Coffee Roasters, supports skiers through flexible work opportunities (Dasha)
Best croissants: Le Fournil Bakery (Dasha)
Best pizza: Rocket Pie (Dasha)
Gear and shopping: Trail Sports. “Maybe you don’t want to bring all your stuff, you want to buy World Cup branded gear, or you want to rent a sled to pull a kid out to the Chandra Crawford Meadow Hut at the Canmore Nordic Centre and eat your snacks there. Maybe your friend wants to level up their game, and you don’t want to teach them; how about they just buy a ski lesson from the pros? Maybe you lost your sunglasses or need new ski pants… Trail Sports is fantastic.” (Chandra)
Bar at which to meet your future life partner: The Drake* (Chandra) (*Where Chandra met her husband, Jared Poplawski, who is the cousin of Jessie Diggins’s husband, Wade Poplawski; does this make Chandra and Jessie cousins?!)
Best WOW factor: Cliffhouse Bistro has tasty eats and mid-century modern decor and is located up a chairlift 2400 feet above Banff townsite. Access from Mt Norquay. (Chandra)
Best steak or burger: Anywhere in Canmore! “Alberta is the land of beef. If you want the best steak of your life, this is probably the best place to have that.” (Dasha)
Best local souvenirs: Rocky Mountain Soap Co, with made-in Canmore soaps, Alberta’s Own, Project A, or Tin Box for touristy gifts, all locally owned businesses (Dasha)
Best long ski and views: Drive 1 hr from Canmore to Lake Louise and ski the 20km gentle terrain of the Great Divide or “old 1A” and then take some pics on Lake Louise in front of the iconic Chateau Lake Louise. (Chandra)
Best scenic, leisurely walk: The 2km Bow River Loop boasts absolutely stunning views and, although not cleared of snow, is generally packed down and relatively accessible due to its flat profile. (Chandra)
Alex Kochon
Alex Kochon (alexkochon@gmail.com) is a former FasterSkier editor and roving reporter who never really lost touch with the nordic scene. A freelance writer, editor, and outdoor-loving mom of two, she lives in northeastern New York and enjoys adventuring in the Adirondacks. She shares her passion for sports and recreation as the co-founder of "Ride On! Mountain Bike Trail Guide" and a sales and content contributor at Curated.com. When she's not skiing or chasing her kids around, Alex assists authors as a production and marketing coordinator for iPub Global Connection.
