Local Sports

A spicy mix of veteran leadership and youthful flare punctuates Canada’s world cup team on the eve of the BMW IBU World Cup Biathlon in Canmore, which runs Feb. 1-7 at the Canmore Nordic Centre.

Every season, student players from across the globe uproot from the familiarity of their family and lifestyle to pursuit a calling at the Banff Hockey Academy.

It was really fast, and really fun. That’s how Canmore skimo racer Michelle Katchur Roberts described Canada’s first-ever skimo sprint event which took place at Castle Mountain Resort in the southern Alberta Rockies on Jan. 9.

Right before Christmas, the good ship Canmore Eagles appeared to spring a leak, as it appears the strongest team in years was in need of some patchwork before the playoffs. Help was on the way, the AJHL team stated, and the slump would soon subside.

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.

Rosanna Crawford and Nathan Smith led Canada’s biathlon team through tough conditions in Ruhpolding, Germany, Sunday, squeezing out a pair of top-20 results before the world cup lands in Canmore (Feb. 1-7). On Saturday (Jan.

Nyah Bay and Lisa Duplesis both won gold as the Canmore Skating Club performed admirably at the East Kootenay Skate Competition in Invermere, Saturday (Jan. 15-17).

Organizers of the Iron Man Banff Triathlon have pulled the plug on the five-year old event, citing unpredictable weather and the loss of Banff Avenue as a finish line as key reasons for the cancellation.

Alex Harvey pulled off a pair of top-10 performances and Canada had three athletes in the top-20 in the final stage, but the national team is ‘extremely disappointed’ with its performance at the Tour de Ski.

Since he was a teenager, biathletes have called Nathan Smith ‘Harry Potter’ thanks to his resemblance to J.K Rowling’s protagonist. Today, they still call him Potter in reference to his magic in the biathlon range.