CANMORE – Enthusiasm surrounds the Alpine Insurance Alberta World Cup Academy’s (AWCA) new team’s diverse, emerging range of athletes heading into the 2019-20 season.
Consisting of two formal groups, one in Canmore and one in Calgary, the team for the AWCA, one of the top Canadian cross-country ski centres, includes athletes in cross-country skiing, biathlon, Nordic combined and racewalking.
“The diversity is what excites me, first and foremost,” said Chris Jeffries, AWCA high performance program director. “There are lots of U-20s, lots of U-23s, a handful of U-25s and couple of U-30s in there to balance it out … it’s a healthy sign of where we’re at. A couple years ago we were top heavy and too centred on the U-25 group. This sets us up for success and to develop athletes.”
Training is under way for the team, which is one of its largest with 19 athletes representing AWCA.
The men’s side consists of 2016 Olympic speedwalker Mathieu Bilodeau, biathlete Matt Strum, Nordic combined athlete Nathaniel Mah and cross-country skiers Nicolas Bennett, Nate Gerwing, Michael MacIsaac-Jones, Thomas Manktelow and Nicholas Randall.
Olympic cross-country skiers Emily Nishikawa (2014, 2018) and Dahria Beatty (2018) lead a very strong women’s program, which has four members on the national ski team. The women’s program includes biathlete/cross-country skier Benita Peiffer, and cross-country skiers Elizabeth Elliott, Beth Granstrom, Hannah Jirousek, Maya MacIsaac-Jones, Annika Richardson, Amanda Thomson, Sadie White and Laurence Dumais.
Jeffries added having the wide range of different sports “compliment what we do.”
“The team goal is always coming back to trying to align our objective,” he said. “We emphasize on qualifying athletes for international events.”
Entering her third year with AWCA, Dumais is enthused about the youth movement this upcoming season.
“I was pretty on my own for the Canmore program, but now there’s new girls and girls that are doing well – it’s good for me to train with them,” she said.
Dumais trains full-time towards achieving an Olympic Games berth, but with the 2022 Beijing three years away, her sights are set on goals for her last season competing in her age group.
“It’s my last year at U-21, so it would be nice to qualify for that,” she said. “The world cup [finals] are in Canmore and Quebec City and it would be exciting to race here in Canmore at home.”
According to the AWCA, last year was a “leap of faith” for the academy when it opened the doors in Calgary for the first time with the arrival of University athletes. In an AWCA press release, it said the new direction was a major step forward, providing athletes the education/sport path has been a major gap in our Canadian system for a long time.
