Kimberley’s Molly Miller has qualified for the FIS World Junior Cross Country Ski Championships that will take place in Lahti, Finland on January 21-27. Molly qualified for Canada’s junior national team at the Canmore Nordic Centre this past week after winning gold in the 5 kilometre skate race on Saturday. Molly also won silver in the classic sprint race held on Thursday. The world junior trials brings together the top 40-50 junior female racers in the country with Canada selecting the top five female athletes in an under 20 age category. In total, Canada will send ten U20 and ten U23 male and female skiers. To qualify, Molly (who is a second year junior girl) had to race up in the junior women category. Molly will join two other members of the Blackjack ski team (Jasmine and Remi Drolet), as well as skiers from across Canada. Molly reports that it is amazing that three members of Rossland’s Blackjack ski team qualified, given that Canada sends ten U20 skiers in total from across the country.
Molly will travel to Sjusjoen, Norway with Team Canada for a training camp from January 8-17 and then travel to Lahti, Norway to race at the world juniors championships that will take place January 20-26.
Since this will be Molly’s first junior world championships, she hopes to use the experience to gain wisdom on the tactics of racing in Europe. “Ski racing in Europe is very competitive, especially at the world junior championships, so I plan to use the Christmas holiday to train hard at the Kimberley nordic trails and stay healthy so that I can go to Finland feeling prepared for the challenge of racing there”.
The world junior championship qualification automatically earns Molly a spot on Team BC’s roster at the Canada Winter Games which will take place in February in Red Deer, AB.
It will be a busy race season but Molly is excited to represent Kimberley, her province, the Blackjack ski team and Canada as she takes on the 2019 race season. Molly is a grade twelve student at Selkirk Secondary School who trains at, and is a member of, the Kimberley Nordic Ski Club.
“Attending the world juniors has been a dream of mine for many years. I am so happy and excited to be travelling to Finland in January.”
“I really want to thank my family who supports me to achieve the goals I set for myself, my coach Dave Wood who prepared me so well for the trials races and the wax technicians Joel Knoff, Ken Byram and Edouard Drolet for their expertise in waxing and also to Fischer and Swix for giving me speedy gear to race with. We had a great team in Canmore supporting us and it really showed, given the success my teammates and I had there. I am truly grateful and appreciate the opportunity to represent Canada in Finland!”
