Canmore speed skater Siobhan Mellors won bronze in team relay while Connor Howe posted two personal best times in the 500 metre and 1,000m to cap off a successful Canada Winter Games performance in Prince George, B.C.
Mellors and the rest of Team Alberta were ranked fifth heading into the final, but put together two solid races in the semi and final to grab the win. She also finished 22nd in the 500m, 20th in the 1,000m, 25th in the 1,500m and 25th in the 3,000m race.
Howe, one of the youngest members of the team, was on the hunt for personal best times, which he was able to achieve. He finished 24th in the 500m and 1,000m, 20th in the 1,500m and 32nd in the 3,000m in a successful performance.
Banff’s Cody Monod also brought home a bronze medal in giant slalom after a solid run at the Purden Ski Village for his best event of the week. He also finished 21st in the super-G, 32nd in ski cross and 54th in slalom. The 14-year-old Banff Alpine Racers athlete was coached by his older brother Matt, and has a promising future in the sport.
Canmore cross-country skier Maya MacIsaac-Jones clocked a fifth-place finish in the 7.5-km classic race and finished eighth in the classic sprint, while teammate Ember Large finished 13th in the 7.5-classic and just missed moving onto the semifinals of the sprint against a very tough field.
Ty Godfrey, who was named to the team as an alternate, had a great 10-km classic race, where he finished eighth. He also finished a tight third in his classic sprint quarterfinal.
Nate Gerwing of the Rocky Mountain Racers and Kendall Chong of the Biathlon Alberta Training Centre posted a series of top-20 results. Chong won bronze as part of Alberta’s 3x6 km relay team, and finished seventh in the 12.5-km individual and 7.5-km sprint races. She was also eighth in the 10-km pursuit. Gerwing was 13th in the individual, 15th in the 10-km sprint and 15th in the 12.5-km pursuit. Peter Hicks battled illness to finish 29th in the 10-km classic race, and also made the quarter-finals against an older, tougher field.
Several Alberta-based athletes also performed well, but often for other provinces.
Leilani Tam von Burg won gold in the 12.5-km individual and sprint races, plus a silver in pursuit. Although she is from Ottawa, Ont., Tam von Burg trains with the Biathlon Alberta Training Centre.
Biathlon Alberta Training Centre athletes Matthew Hudec, Arthur Root and Alexandre Dupuis finished fifth, sixth and seventh in the 15-km individual race, even though they represented their home provinces of Saskatchewan, British Columbia and Quebec.
The cross-country ski races continue until March 1.
