Larch Hills Nordic skiers made sure the club was well represented at the season’s first Teck BC Cup event over the weekend.
The Larch Hills Junior Race Team and the Larch Hills Nordic Society hosted event at Larch Hills on Saturday, Jan. 4, and Sunday, 5. Saturday included an interval start sprint qualifier followed by Kings Court or elimination format sprints, and an interval start free technique event on Sunday.
Clubs attended from all over B.C. as well as Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, Oregon and Norway. Distances varied from 150-metre sprints and 1-kilometre distance events for the youngest athletes, up to 800-m sprints and 10.5-km events for older competitors.
Beautiful day for the Teck BC Cup #1 #SalmonArm @SalmonArmBC @SalmonArm @shuswaptourism @NordiqCanada pic.twitter.com/WlQV6XRypb
— Larch Hills Nordics (@Ski_LHN) January 5, 2020
While the sprint racing on Saturday was exciting and the athletes were challenged by multiple loops of a tough course on Sunday, the big story of the weekend was the weather. The week leading up to the event brought a lot of snow, rising and falling temperatures and wind. More than 10,000 homes in the Shuswap were without power for hours or days, including the chalet at Larch Hills. The heavy snow, combined with winds brought down hundreds of trees on the trails at Larch Hills, and volunteers scrambled to clear the trails required to run the events. Thankfully, by Friday afternoon, Jan. 3, roads were cleared, power restored and everything fell into place – masking the huge amount of effort by Larch Hills’ volunteers to put on an event that saw approximately 500 skiers take to the trails.
Finals for the younger athletes! @SalmonArmBC @SalmonArm @skookumcyclesa @NordiqCanada @shuswaptourism #SalmonArm pic.twitter.com/Avl61B7TVd
— Larch Hills Nordics (@Ski_LHN) January 5, 2020
Full results are available at zone 4, but most impressive was the number of clubs that managed to place in the top-five in various categories. The following five clubs topped the list in terms of top five finishes: Larch Hills Nordic: 86; Sovereign Lake Nordic: 58; Revelstoke Nordic: 42; Telemark Nordic: 38; Hollyburn Ski Club: 28.
Among individual top-five results for Larch Hills skiers, Kaden Baum finished first in the ParaNordic Youth category, while Lily Brook took the top spot in the ParaNordic Women category. Kiara Zuidhof, 2nd, U8 Girls; Ezekial Liebich, 1st, U8 boys; Audrey Liebich, 1st, U10 Girls; Gideon Breugem, 1st, Aidyn Zuidhof, 3rd, U10 boys; Reese Major, 1st, Keira Cadden, 5th, U12 Girls; Ian Orchard, 4th, U12 Boys; Samantha Vukadinovic, 4th, U16 Girls; Natalie Wilkie, 3rd, Open Women; Sheila Corbett, 4th, Masters Women; Thomas Hardy, 5th, Open Men; Glenn Bond, 1st, Masters Men.
Tech BC Cup #1 is the first in a series of three weekends of racing, culminating in the final Teck BC Championships. The next race in the series will be in Prince George, Feb. 1-2, and the championships will be hosted by Telemark Nordic in Kelowna, March 6-8.
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