The Ontario Cup race circuit came to North Bay this weekend for the third event of the year, and the Nipissing Nordic team didn't miss the opportunity to keep ramping things up as the season goes on.
Both our Lakers Men's and Women's teams showed strength in their depth and with multiple podium finishes on both days of racing.
Racing kicked off Saturday afternoon in blizzard conditions with the Women's 10km Skate race, with snow falling hard and accumulating quickly as the race went on.
Continuing to build on her stellar performances before Christmas, it was
Emily Drake who led the Lakers and took the gold medal, finishing in first place in a time of 32 minutes and 47 seconds (32:47), finishing 23 seconds ahead of MacMaster's Soren Meeuwisse. Rounding out the podium was our second Laker of the day,
Sophia Slater, fighting hard the whole way through to clench her first Ontario Cup medal.
Rounding out the women's results was Women's team Captain Emmy Bach (11th),
Colleen Beck (14th), and
Jaime Schweyer (18th), all skiing strong races.
The Men took to the 10km course shortly after the Women with snow continuing to accumulate throughout the race.
Topping the Men's podium was Lakers Men's team Captain
Alex Maycock, clocking a time of 28:31 to take the victory. Rounding out the podium was Alec Maclean from University of Guelph, followed by Matteo Reich from Laurentian University.
Lakers skier Seb Gingras just missed the podium, finishing in 4th place, followed by
Noah Sullivan (5th),
Declan MacDougall (6th),
Bryan Stone (10th), and
Dylan Beck (12th) rounding out our Lakers Men.
By Day 2 the snow had subsided, the sun came out, and the Lakers were set for another strong day of racing. This was a 10km Pursuit style race, meaning the starting order and times were dictated by the results from the previous day.
For the women, this meant Lakers athlete Drake would be the first Varsity skier to start, getting a 23 second head start over MacMaster's Meeuwisse.
Drake skied a strong race to not only maintain the gap but extend it to nearly 1 minute, winning the Pursuit and having the fastest time of the day to boot. Narrowly missing the podium in 4th place was Slater, followed by Bach (8th), and Schweyer (20th).
Wrapping up the weekend was the Men's 10km Pursuit, with Lakers athlete Maycock being first off the line and Guelph's Alec Maclean starting only 1 second behind him. At the end of the day it was Maycock who came out on top, winning the race and having the fastest time of the day.
Unable to close the gap from the day before but skiing an impressive race was Gingras finishing in 4th place, followed by Sullivan (5th), MacDougall (6th), Beck (10th), and Stone (11th) rounding out our Lakers Men.
The Lakers would like to thank everyone who came out to cheer them on this weekend, and their wax techs for putting out some amazing boards for both races.
The team will be competing again in two weeks in Mont St. Anne, Quebec at another National level race before tapering off their training for OUAs in February.
Lakers head coach
Toivo Koivukoski liked what he saw from his team throughout the event held locally.
"The team built into this Ontario Cup race weekend, seeming to improve from the first to second races, with the first race effort activating the skiers' bodies. Just coming off a rest week after some hard efforts that included both high intensity training and long slow distance sessions, many seemed sluggish in the first race, the 10km individual start skate. I like it when, reflecting on results, I see it on an athlete's face that they want to do better the next day," Koivukoski said. "That's what the team set out to do today. The classic pursuit start put some clear targets out in front of them, and the skiers started charging and picking up momentum. These two back to back race intensity sessions should be a good training effect going into World Junior and U23 Championship Trials, which the team is very much looking forward to."
