Soo Finnish Nordic race team traveled to Temiskaming Shores to compete at the Ontario Midget Championships. Over 120 athletes from (17) clubs competed in Classic and Free Style events. Two athletes captured Provincial titles.
Shilo Rousseau, Provincial Champion Midget Girls Free Style, she also placed 2nd in the Classic race Declan MacDougall, Provincial Champion Pee Wee Boys Classic Style, he also placed 2nd in the Free Style race. Sebastien Gingras medaled in the Midget Boys Classic race with a 3rd place finish, only 1.3 seconds from first. Also competing and having personal best races were: Eamon MacDougall, Gareth Bellinger, Gavan Barrett, Courtney Gingras and Chandra Rousseau.
Organizers did a wonderful job in having to restructure the weekend with very little notice. It was decided at the Friday night Coaches meeting that we needed to run both races on Saturday, as Sunday temperatures were predicted to be too cold for racing. So we did the Interval Start Freestyle at 10:00 am and then the Mass Start Classic at 2:00 pm. Groomers and Stadium staff had just over 1.5 hours to groom and set up the course between races. Everything worked and it made for a great banquet on Saturday night with all the racing done. Thanks to our Ray Gingras and Cecilia Rousseau for working on the skis. We really nailed the afternoon Classic race with rocket fast skis.
One athlete was overheard telling Ray, that he had never experienced such fast skis, “Sick” was exact wording.