It has been 27 years since the World Cup landed in Eastern Canada. The big show is back, setting up in the front yard of the Quebec Parliament building. The unique course features a small jump, and the loop should favor American Kikkan Randall.
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Anatomy of a Win with JP Le Guellec and Jean Paquet, and Simple Pursuit Instructions: ‘Run for Your Life!’
Chelsea LittleDecember 3, 2012
JP Le Guellec's coach Jean Paquet told him to stop putting so much pressure on himself - so Le Guellec did, focused on skiing relaxed and knocking down targets, and saw his (and Canada's) first World Cup victory.
Kocher’s Top-Ten Continues Canada’s Roll; Perras, Crawford Also Qualify for Pursuit
Chelsea LittleDecember 2, 2012
ÖSTERSUND, Sweden – After watching teammate Jean Philippe Le Guellec win Canada’s first World Cup earlier in the afternoon, Zina Kocher had her work cut out for her to stay on task for her own 7.5 k sprint. “It was so exciting,” she told FasterSkier. “It took me actually a long time before my race to just calm down, because we were so excited. We watched the flower ceremony, and I was so pumped up...
BEND, Ore. – Jean-Philippe Le Guellec was riding high in 2010 when he finished sixth in the sprint, 11th in the pursuit, and 13th in the individual at the Vancouver Olympics. The Canadian biathlete – then 24 – was motivated and aiming for his first Word Cup podium. The 2011 season didn’t go quite as expected; he picked up just four top-20 results and late in the year received a diagnosis of mononucleosis, which explained...
After Strong Start from Imrie, Canadian Women Fade From Shooting Errors; Kocher Revives Hopes, Climbs to 13th
Chelsea LittleMarch 10, 2012
RUHPOLDING, Germany – After a week where not many team members were satisfied with their performances, the Canadian women’s squad crafted a new strategy for the 4 x 6 kilometer relay on Saturday. In most cases, Megan Imrie and Zina Kocher have skied the first two legs. But not this time: for World Championships, the women wanted to mix things up. “We just decided to try switching it because usually Megan and Megan and Yolaine...
Canada’s Le Guellec, Kocher Finish 26th in World Champs Pursuits; Team’s Seven Starters Have Mixed Success
Chelsea LittleMarch 5, 2012
RUHPOLDING, Germany – Two Canadians had high hopes for Sunday’s pursuit: Jean Phillipe Le Guellec was 14th after Saturday’s World Championship sprint, and teammate Zina Kocher 18th. They were poised, it seemed, to have career-best finishes. Le Guellec had never finished in the top ten at World Championships, but started just 12 seconds outside it on Sunday. Kocher was shooting for a top-16, which would have guaranteed her funding through Athletics Canada for the next...
RUHPOLDING, Germany – After placing sixth in a World Cup mixed relay earlier this season, the Canadian team came into today’s race at World Championships with high hopes. But they couldn’t handle the heat – literally, in this case, as temperatures neared 50 and the snow turned to slush. “Everything in the sun is pretty soft and mushy,” second-leg racer Zina Kocher told FasterSkier after the race. “It’s actually a pretty hard race, not just...
YOG: Capping an Outstanding Day for North America, Canadians Fly to Bronze in Team Jumping
David McCahillJanuary 22, 2012
SEEFELD IN TIROL, Austria— Despite significant recent snowfall, the Youth Olympic Games staff managed to polish the HS 75 meter jump in Seefeld Arena in time for Saturday’s Team Jumping event—the final Nordic event of the Games. The Canadian Team— consisting of female special jumper Taylor Henrich, male special jumper Dusty Korek and Nordic Combined skier Nathaniel Mah— managed to take advantage of the inconsistent conditions to secure a historic Bronze medal. The team...
As IBU Cup Prepares for North American Swing, Canadians Laud Value in Athlete Development
Chelsea LittleJanuary 19, 2012
When American and Canadian skiers start consistently winning domestic races, they face a choice: do they stay on their home circuits, or head to Europe? And if a trip across the Atlantic is in the cards, where will they race? With limited World Cup quotas and a myriad of regional race circuits, skiers have to not only choose which of the many races they might attend, but also generally organize and fund the trips themselves....
Youth Olympic Games Presents: Maya MacIsaac-Jones
Chelsea LittleDecember 27, 2011
How fast is Maya MacIsaac-Jones? At a recent NorAm sprint in Rossland, British Columbia, the Albertan had the fastest qualifying time of any junior, covering the course more than eight seconds faster than any of her competitors. She went on to win the junior race, despite the fact that she’s only sixteen – three years younger than the other podium finishers. And if that isn’t impressive enough, MacIsaac-Jones’ time in the qualifier would have put...
Canadian Women “Stoked” About Newfound Depth and Consistency on Biathlon World Cup
Chelsea LittleDecember 14, 2011
Lowell Bailey may be getting a lot of attention these days, but the American biathlete isn’t the only one to have found success in the early days of the 2012 World Cup season. Quietly, the Canadian women have upped their own profile – and their first two weeks of racing culminated in a ninth-place relay finish in Hochfilzen, Austria, tying the U.S. men’s performance. Team member Zina Kocher, who has been racing in senior-level international...
Canada’s hopes for a biathlon medal at the Youth Olympic Games are probably riding on no single athlete more than Calgary’s Stuart Harden. Harden is one of those athletes who seems to be a junior forever, simply because they find success at such a young age. Last season, he competed in his first World Junior Championships – mostly because before then, he had been too young to qualify. As it was, the then-16-year-old was still...
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,...
Youth Olympic Games Presents: Danielle Vrielink
Chelsea LittleOctober 31, 2011
(Note: This is the fourth in a series of interviews with athletes who will be competing at the first-ever winter Youth Olympic Games in Innsbruck, Austria this winter. The second with Anna Kubek, the third with Aleksandra Zakrzewska, all U.S. biathletes.) 2011 was a big year for Canadian biathlete Danielle Vrielink. Perhaps the most obvious accomplishment for the Calgary native was a trip to the World Youth Championships in the Czech Republic, her first international...
Over 1,600 racers were met with mild temperatures and fast conditions for today’s Canadian Birkebeiner Ski Marathon just outside of Edmonton, Alta. It was a very flat course that started at the Ukrainian Cultural Village and wound it’s way through Elk Island National Park to the Cooking Lake Blackfoot recreation area. Racers got to take in the northern Alberta prairie scenery, crossing a number of frozen lakes and bogs in near-perfect conditions. The premier event,...
Canadian Birkebeiner Races Start Today
Jesse WinterFebruary 12, 2011
The 23rd Canadian Birkie races kick off tomorrow in Edmonton, Alta., but the festival has already begun
Fast and Female Enters “PostapocOlympic” Future
Chelsea LittleDecember 30, 2010
At a Fast and Female event in early December, a multi-time World Cup medalist stood in awe of what the program was offering to young girls. “It’s amazing what can change the course of a kid’s life, and hopefully this will change it for the better,” she said. Chandra Crawford? Kikkan Randall? Nope. This time, it was top Canadian alpine skier Kelly VanderBeek. Fast and Female, which was founded by Crawford in 2005, is a...
Canadian Interuniversity Sport Team Rosters
Ben TheyerlDecember 21, 2010
December 21, 2010 – Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) announced Monday the student-athletes and coaches who will represent Canada in cross country skiing and biathlon at the 2011 Winter Universiade in Erzurum, Turkey. The 24th Winter World University Games will run from January 27 to February 6. The cross country skiing events get under way on Jan. 28, with the biathlon competitions kicking off a day later. Heading the Canadian cross country skiing delegation in Erzurum...
The Southern Ontario Training Centre (SOTC) is seeking to hire a full-time Head Coach who possess the credentials, skills, drive, leadership qualities, and passion to develop, grow and lead a high performance cross country ski training centre in southern Ontario. The successful candidate will work out of the SOTC office, hosted by the Hardwood Hills Nordic Development Centre (HHNDC) and Hardwood Ski & Bike, one of Ontario’s finest cross country ski facilities, located just outside...
Pros of Tomorrow: Brittany Webster
Nathaniel HerzSeptember 21, 2010
Unlike some of her peers, like Americans Simi Hamilton and Ida Sargent, Brittany Webster’s rise has not been meteoric. She’s never been on the podium at a major international race, and she has only contested four World Cups—all of which were in her home country of Canada. She doesn’t even have her own website like many of her compatriots—just a plain, infrequently updated blog on WordPress. But of all the North American athletes competing in...