The Nipissing Lakers Nordic Ski team continues to tear up the trails.
The Lakers claimed some more hardware this weekend at Canadian National Championship.
This was the CCUNC Team Sprint. The format involves two laps of 1.2km for each of two skiers on a team. The Lakers A-team skiers demonstrated their fitness and raced intelligently to make gaps where they could and force the Laval and Lakehead teams to bridge gaps, then tucked into the draft to conserve energy where possible.
Maycock started things off for the Lakers and set a furious pace early on to come in even with Laval and Lakehead in the first leg, and opened up a gap on those two team in his second leg.
Cascagnette skied a text-book anchor leg by sling-shotting off Laval's Will Dumont on the last downhill into the finishing straight, and muscled by his competitor to win with a lunge to the line. Nipissing's second men's team of Ryan Williams and
Kayden Sim put in a sturdy effort for a 10th place finish, hungry for more in the upcoming races.
The Lakers earned another National podium today with Cascagnette grinding out a bronze medal performance in the 10km individual classic race, with Laval's Will Dumas and Carleton's Aidan Kirkham placing first and second, respectively.
The race took place in pristine conditions on cold snow with firm tracks at Lappe Nordic, with four major climbs on each of the 2 laps of the 5km course for the men, with the toughest skiers prevailing over the day.
Cascagnette proved himself against the strongest varsity skiers in the country with a time of 28.31.5 over 10km in the classic technique. His fitness level has built through the race season, and he is well-positioned for Tuesday's skate pursuit race, being 15 seconds off of first place.
Rookie Alex Maycock finished in 14th with a time of 29:34.0,
Kayden Sim 25th in 30:34.9, Ryan Williams 27th in 30:45.2, and Simon Giasson 34th in 32:40.4. On the women's side rookie Emily Drake had her best classic result to date, with a time of 19:19.9 over 5km for 27th, while Sophie Slater finishing 31st in 19:59.0.
"What a day for Nipissing. After five years of trying to make this happen, it feels pretty amazing to finally be bringing home a gold medal from the Canadian National Championships, and making it happen with a teammate makes it that much better," Cascagnette said of the hardware he brought home. "Alex skied an incredible third leg and set me up right where I wanted to be going into the last kilometre, and I was able to muscle my way past Laval's anchor skier to take the win for us in that crazy photo finish. That's the start to the week we were looking for."
Maycock was thrilled to be part of the championship.
"It was a very special day indeed, and I was happy to make this goal and dream come true. Jordan and I skied to the best of our abilities by being relaxed through the easier course terrain, and pushing strong on the few climbs we could," he said. "The race intelligence Jordan skied his last leg with is truly elite calibre by sticking to his race plan, and putting in the finish sprint it takes. I am proud to win my first Canadian National title as a Nipissing University Laker, and to do it with Jordan, an athlete I have looked up to for years, is an incredible feeling. We are stoked and excited to continue this momentum into the rest of the races."
