Canmore’s Maya MacIsaac-Jones and Dahria Beatty posted the best world cup results of their career as the cross-country ski sprint duo finished 31st and 32nd, Saturday (Jan. 16) in Planica, Slovenia.
Picking a weekend where many of the world’s top skiers took time off to recover from the grueling Tour de Ski, including Alex Harvey and Devon Kershaw, Canada sent a squad of its U25 athletes to Slovenia to gain valuable world cup experience. Representing the next generation, Beatty and MacIsaac-Jones took advantage of the opportunity, just missing the heats by less than half a second.
“This weekend was an amazing first opportunity of world cup racing this season. I felt really good on Saturday and was super happy with the result,” Beatty said. “The heats would have been nice, but coming so close gives me great motivation for next time.”
The result is promising for Canada’s women’s team, which only has Emily Nishikawa skiing full time on the world cup at the moment. The women will have another chance on the world cup this weekend in Nove Mesto.
“Although I would have loved to race in the heats, this result gave me the confidence that achieving a top-30 result on the world cup circuit is possible,” MacIsaac-Jones said.
Nishikawa was 39th in the sprint, followed by Cendrine Browne (42nd) and Katherine Stewart-Jones (54th). Skiing for Switzerland, Banff’s Heidi Widmer finished 29th – her second time reaching the world cup heats this season. Stina Nilson of Sweden won the sprint over Norwegians Astrid Uhrenholdt and Heidi Weng.
On Sunday, Nishikawa and Browne paired up for the team sprint, as the Canadians finished 15th. MacIsaac-Jones and Beatty finished 19th.
“I didn’t feel as good in the team sprint and it was tough, icy conditions. Overall, there are lots of good takeaways from the weekend and lots of things to work on,” Beatty said. “I am so happy to have such a strong group of ladies to race with this weekend. It makes the whole experience that much better.”
The men’s team also consisted of many young skiers, and proved to be another heartbreaker for Len Valjas, who finished 31st for the third time this season – just missing the heats yet again. In a tough field, Valjas was only .13 out of 30th spot.
Knute Johnsgaard, making his international world cup debut, finished 54th, followed by Andy Shields (56th) and Jesse Cockney (61st). Italian Federico Pellegrino took the win, followed by Baptiste Gros and Richard Jouve of France.
It wasn’t the result they wanted, and the Canadian men finished 16th (Valjas and Johnsgaard) and 22nd (Cockney and Shields) in the team sprint.
According to Cross Country Canada High Performance Director Thom Holland, the tour was designed to expose young Canadians to world cup racing.
“The B-tour this year was designed to focus on our top under-25 athletes, enabling them to gain experience in challenging races in Europe,” Holland said. “We have normally done the B-tour in late February, but with Ski Tour Canada being in early march, we looked to the OPA races and world cup weekends in January as a good competition plan for this season.”
Many of these athletes will earn spots on Canada’s Ski Tour Canada squad, and the tour will only help them as that series of races approaches, finishing in Canmore on March 12.
“The six athletes on this tour will get up to four weekends of solid high level racing and will get to race with older and more experienced Canadian athletes on the world cup and senior development teams. This will be good preparation for their major objective this season, which is Ski Tour Canada.”
Harvey and Kershaw rejoin the team this weekend.
In other ski news, Cross Country Canada named its junior and U23 world championship team, which will travel to Rasnov, Romania, Feb. 22-28.
Marie Corriveau, Hannah Mehain, Sadie White, Natalie Hynes, Joey Foster, Antoine Blais, Phillippe Boucher, Ryan Jackson and William Dumas were selected for the junior team, while Jennifer Jackson, Sophie Carrier-Laforte, Kendra Murray, Frederique Vezina, Alannah Maclean, Julien Locke, Scott Hill, Alexis Dumas, Jack Carlyle and Angus Foster were selected for the U23 tour.
Canada has also opted to send a junior-B tour to allow more young athletes a chance to race overseas. Canmore’s Eric Byram will join Julian Smith, Gareth Williams, Sam Greer, Etienne Hebert, Claire Grall-Johnson, Anna Goodwin, Mia Serratore and Molly Miller at the German national championships in Oberhof, and the OPA races in Campra, Switzerland.
