NorAm/SuperTour Racers Arriving Early to Train

The excitement for the race weekend is building, with the arrival of the Thunder Bay National Team Development Centre athletes on November 30th.  TBay brought around twenty athletes, the team van and trailer, and a few coaches.  Look for bright green training jackets and blue puffy jackets with TBAY on the back.

Because the NorAm circuit has a strong western bias this year, the team will leave their van and trailer in the west for the season.  The season begins with races at Sovereign Lake and BlackJack before Christmas, visits Whistler after Christmas, and finishes with nationals in Canmore.  A select few will qualify for Junior World Championships and Under 23 World Championships in Soldier Hollow, Utah.

On December 10th and 11th, the top North American skiers will be competing for world cup starts and points that lead to Olympic qualification. It looks like this team will have fun getting ready, as they posted this video from their first day here at Sovereign.

November Visitors at Sovereign Lake

A visiting biathlon team practising mass starts in the stadium (Photo: SLNC)
A visiting biathlon team practising mass starts in the stadium (Photo: SLNC)

Sovereign Lake was energized by visitors last weekend, in large part thanks to US Thanksgiving.

As usual, many of our neighbours to the south came up to celebrate their most important holiday with us. The Methow Valley club teamed up with Momentum Northwest from Seattle and Mt Bachelor in Oregon for a combined camp with over 60 kids.  Racing fans would recognize US Olympians Laura McCabe and Lars Flora among their coaches.

Continuing the visitors theme, US Olympian Kris Freeman was here for a week training for the start of the SuperTour season.  If he was skiing so fast that you missed him, he will be back next week for the NorAm/SuperTour races.

The joint Sovereign/SilverStar SuperCamps continue, but the real stars were a group of ladies doing a boot camp with our own Pat Pearce.

Three days of twice daily ski workouts, red wine, and sunshine brings out the smiles for the World Masters relay team. (Photo: SLNC)
Three days of twice daily ski workouts, red wine, and sunshine brings out the smiles for the World Masters relay team. (Photo: SLNC)

Nearer neighbours Larch Hills and Telemark were out in force as their on-snow programs started.

And for the club member (name withheld to protect the innocent Quality Greens shopper) who doubted that the early season snow was worth the twenty minute drive from Vernon, Gene from Bend had no doubt that it was worth the 11 hour drive.lauram