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Local lugers medal at youth nationals

Sliders slip onto podium in Calgary races

Lugers from Whistler, Pemberton and Mount Currie put in a strong performance to close their season in Calgary on Sunday (Jan. 31) at the Canadian Youth Championships, bringing four medals back to the corridor.

The up-and-coming sliders with the B.C. luge program lived up to the expectations of program coordinator Nicole Simon, who had earlier predicted the much-improved racers would bring home a few medals.

“They slid like rock stars,” Simon wrote in an email to The Question, adding that she was “very proud of them.”

Whistler’s Reid Watts and Pemberton’s Adam Shippit formed a powerful force in the Youth C Boys race, with Watts winning gold and Shippit sliding to silver. Whistler’s Archie Mahoney wasn’t far behind with his fifth-place finish.

Reaching speeds up to 53 kilometres per hour, Watts posted a winning two-run time of one minute, 16.829 seconds, followed by Shippit’s time of 1:18.008 and Mahoney with 1:20.466.

Mount Currie’s Elainah Andrew captured a silver medal in the Youth C Girls race with her time of 1:20.718, reaching speeds up to nearly 53 kilometres per hour.

Pemberton’s Jenna Spencer won a bronze medal in the Youth B Girls race, reaching speeds up to 91 kilometres per hour in her two runs and posting a combined time of 1:28.491.

GMC Cup curtailed

Though heavy fog called a halt to the men’s and women’s GMC Cup super G races on Thursday (Jan. 28) at Apex Mountain, Whistler Mountain Ski Club (WMSC) racers still managed to squeeze in some solid results before the end of this second stop on the alpine ski series.

Whistler’s Conrad Pridy, member of the B.C. Ski Team, now sits second in the Western GMC Cup overall standings, followed by brother and teammate Morgan in fourth, teammate Ben MacLean of Pemberton in seventh, and WMSC FIS team member Daniel Kwong in eighth. WMSC racer and B.C. team member Michael Cadman sits 10th.

On the women’s side, B.C. team members Celine Rytz and Jocelyn Ramsden of the WMSC are tied for first, followed by teammate Sarah Freeman in third and Whistler’s Kailee Darlington, a first-year FIS athlete with the WMSC, holding on for fifth overall. The WMSC’s Alecia Willis is seventh.

Ramsden and Willis finished first and second in the women’s super G race last Wednesday (Jan. 27), while Darlington finished seventh and eighth, respectively, in two downhill events last Tuesday (Jan. 26), making her the second and third J1 racer in those events. Darlington finished 10th overall, making her the third-fastest J1, in Wednesday’s super G.

The WMSC’s Elyse Timoshenko finished sixth in the Tuesday afternoon downhill, making her the second J1 racer, and eighth in the super G to be the second J1 again. Sofi Leroux, another first-year WMSC FIS racer, was the 10th J1 racer in the Tuesday afternoon DH.

Kwong earned two top-10 finishes and an 11th-place result in three days of racing, placing him among the top five J1s three times.

Crossing tracks in WB races

Winners in last weekend’s Whistler Blackcomb Ski and Snowboard Cross races, the two-day recreational event that wrapped up on Sunday on Blackcomb Mountain:

• Katie Fleckenstein and Finn Iles, Ski Girls and Boys 10 and Under;

• Chantal Deane and Cameron Alexander, Ski Girls and Boys 11 to 13;

• Kaila Lafreniere, Snowboard Girls 13 and Under;

• Dakota Newman, Snowboard Boys 14 to 16;

• Camilla Loughlin and Blake Newton, Ski Female and Male 14 to 16;

• Curtis Koepke, Ski Male 17-plus; and

• Maiko Hayashi and Tristan Walls, Snowboard Female and Male 17-plus.

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