Discussion: Canadian Champions

Congratulations to the six different Canadian elite champions from last weekend. The weekend of racing kicked off with the middle distance. Alex Bergstrom (OOC) and Carol Walker took the middle titles on a challenging map at Rafter Six. Tori Owen (FWOC) and Graeme Rennie (GVOC) both ran solid races the next day at the same area to win the long distance champs. The venue then changed to the University of Calgary for the sprints where DGL juniors Emma Waddington and Jan Erik Naess won the elite sprint titles (they each have two more years of junior racing). The two juniors then joined up with another junior Nicole Whitmore to win the sprint relay club championship for DGL. The relay was especially exciting with the lead changing several times between DGL, FWOC (2nd) and GVOC (3rd).

Congrats to all athletes and a special thanks to the organizers.

Um, there were four people in the sprint relay ... who was the fourth on that winning DGL team? Don't look!! ANy guesses?

Hint - we followed WOC Sprint Relay format, so had:
Leg 1 & 4: woman
Leg 2 & 3: man

Haha! Yeah OK it was me. I drew the short straw among DGL's former WOC runners (Mark Adams, Oivind Naess and myself) to join three of our four JWOC runners on the relay (Christian didn't race in AB). I sat out the individual sprint race and then pushed as hard as a could during the race and I still had 12 year old kids running by me. ;-) Lucky for us Nicole ran a strong first leg and we had the two Canadian sprint Champions back loaded onto the final two legs.

The relay was a lot of fun. I'd love to see the mixed sprint relay become an annual race at the Canadian Champs. Heck I'd argue to make it even more exciting that there should be only one category and that teams have to have two women and two men (any age). It would be a good way to recruit good sprinters.