Telemark skiers shine in the Okanagan and Europe
Special to The Okanagan Weekend
Telemark Nordic skiers were front and centre at the Junior and Under-23 World Championships in Finland, and at the largest Loppet in B.C., the Reino Keski-Salmi Loppet in Salmon Arm.
The age group World Nordic Ski Championships (WSC) are contested every year. Athletes may not be more than 20 years old during the competition season (Jr. WSC) or 23 years old for the U23 WSC. This year the Championships were held in Lahti, Finland.
Gareth Williams and his Telemark Nordic teammate Hannah Mehain enjoyed some terrific results. Gareth broke into the top 30 in the world in the under-23 class and Hannah, in her first year in under 23, just missed the top 30 by finishing 31st in the 15K classic race.
Gareth’s top 30 came in the 30K classic in a sprint finish with another young Canadian skier, Antoine Cyr, who edged Gareth out for top North American by 0.1 seconds! They finished 27th and 28th.
Remi Drolet of Rossland was the star for Canada, finishing seventh in the Junior 30K race, only seven seconds behind the winner. That was terrific, but he could have been even better except that another skier caused him to fall while in the lead and both his skis came off — something that rarely happens in cross country. He lost at least 20 seconds getting them back on.
Salmon Arm’s Reino Keski-Salmi Loppet was a huge success for Telemark Nordic skiers. The race offers several distances from 1K for kids under four years old, up to 34K for the main event.
The 34K loppet is a tough course with two 17K laps and much climbing. I had planned to compete in it for my 28th time this year, but a bad cold made that impossible. However, my GPS from other years tells me that the total climb is over 600 metres.
Kelowna skiers from the Telemark club dominated the men’s 34K race, taking the top three spots. Ian Williams (Gareth’s younger brother) finished first overall in 1:47, followed by Greg Kilroy (1:55) and Alex McDonald (1:57). That makes two Loppet wins in a row for Williams and he becomes, I believe, the second Telemark skier to win the Reino Loppet. My son, skiing for Telemark, won it in 1990.
Telemark’s Jenna Sim was third overall among the women and first in her 18-29 age class. Adam Elliot, who is the racers’ coach at Telemark, won the M40-49 class, with teammate Ian Crossthwaite coming third.
In the one lap 17K event, Telemark skiers again did well. Cole Turner won the M14-17 age class in 54:36. David Lloyd took the 70-79 class, Eric Rayson the 80-plus class, and Greg Redman the M18-70 class, while Ingrid Musselman-Bell finished third in the F18-70.
Telemark kids also won more than their share of medals!
Ayla Musselman-Bell won the 5K F8-10 race, while Finn Redman, Justin Siever and Evan Edwards went 1-2-3 in the M11-13 class.
Sophie Steinruck won the F11-13 class for her third win in her last three races! Kaelin Urness was first female in the 10K. Telemark Biathletes have also been busy. At the B.C. Cup races in Prince George, Natalie Benoit of Summerland placed first in the youth women’s 10K and second in the 7.5K race. Kira Friesen, in the senior girls’ class, won both her events and continued her winning streak with two more victories at the Quesnel races two weeks later.
Enzo Fershau (junior boy) had a first and a second in his two races at Quesnel.
Telemark is hosting the Western Canadian Championship races next weekend, Feb. 8-10. This will be an enormous undertaking as over 500 racers from all across Western Canada will be here.
They could use some help! If you can volunteer a few hours of your time, email volunteer@telemarknordic.com for more information.
RUNNING
Kelowna’s Malindi Elmore competed for Canada in the 1,500 metres at the 2004 Olympics. Now a professional triathlete, she recently travelled to Houston, Texas, to run her first-ever marathon. Well, not exactly her first, but the first one that was not part of an Ironman Triathlon. She was amazing!
She was not given elite status for the start, as she did not have an individual marathon time, but she ran like an elite runner, finishing seventh overall in an extremely fast time of 2:32:10! What an incredible time for a first marathon, the fastest marathon time ever, I believe, for a Kelowna runner and one of the top-five times for a B.C. woman.
Elite runners took the first six positions, but another 10 elite runners finished behind Elmore.
Malindi is a very nice person and an amazing athlete. Somehow she managed to get back into marathon shape only seven months after giving birth to her second son, Oliver.
John Lopes, my old running buddy, just returned from Hawaii where he ran in the Diamond Head Dash 8K race and finished first in the M65-69 class in 36:29!
Janice “The Racer” Bradshaw ran the Arizona Rock N Roll half-marathon just a week after doing the four-race Disney Dopey Challenge! She had a very good race considering how much the previous week must have taken out of her. Her time of 2:09 was 43rd out of 275 women in the F55-59 class. Way to go Janice!
18-YEAR-OLD CANADIAN RIDES AROUND THE WORLD
B’yauling Toni rolled into his hometown of Saskatoon on Tuesday evening after seven months and over 31,000 kilometres on a solo, unsupported circumnavigation of the world by bicycle.
Toni, 18, became the youngest person to ride around the world unsupported when his journey wrapped up after 205 days.
Toni set off on his ride six days after finishing high school on July 1, 2018. He pedalled across Canada from Saskatoon to Halifax. From there, he flew to Portugal and rode through Spain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia before entering Russia.
After riding across the vast expanse of the world’s biggest country, he entered Mongolia and then headed through China to Shanghai where he flew to Perth, Australia. From Brisbane, he flew to Invercargill, New Zealand, and rode to Aukland.
The final leg of his journey began when he landed in Vancouver in the latter half of December. Since then, he’s ridden across the Rockies and into the Prairies in the height of the Canadian winter.
Throughout his journey, Toni fell ill in the Gobi Desert in Mongolia and was unable to walk for a couple of days, he was struck by a car in New Zealand and lost his money belt containing $400. When faced with brutal headwinds and -20 C temperatures, he slept in a ditch for four hours only to wake up to find out the conditions had worsened. Progress in the Canadian winter was hard and slow, but he did it. What an amazing young man!
60 IRONMAN TRIATHLONS AT 60!
I Love hearing about amazing feats by senior athletes, and this one is unreal!
Will Turner, a triathlete from Richmond, Virginia, set a goal for himself on his 60th birthday. He decided he would attempt to run 60 Ironman Triathlons before he turned 61, and on a damp Friday night, in early January, in front of the Sports Bakers Stadium in downtown Richmond, Turner finally did it.
Turner is the oldest person to ever complete 60 Ironman triathlons, covering 8,436 collective miles of swimming, biking and running. Turner broke the three-year-old world record of 44 Ironman Triathlons completed in one year, by a French triathlete.
Bill Stephens is a guest columnist for The Okanagan Weekend who covers a wide variety of endurance sports throughout the year, ranging from running to cycling and beyond.