Ben Gadd might want to think about investing in a better alarm clock.
The one he was depending on to wake him from his slumber for Day 2 of the Teck BC Cup No. 2 cross-country ski races failed miserably and the 23-year-old UNBC varsity ski team member just about missed his race on Sunday.
Gadd got to Otway Nordic Centre only a few minutes before he was due to get lined up for the senior men’s 15-kilometre interval start event and his lack oF warmup time didn’t seem to hurt him.
“I didn’t get here until 8:55 and 9:03 was my start time,” said Gadd. “I screwed that up a bit and it went better than it should have.”
Gadd was one of three UNBC skiers to grab a spot on the medal podium Sunday in the skate technique event, finishing second behind Kayden Sim of Hollyburn Ski Club (Vancouver). Gadd, a native of Golden who used to race for Kimberley Ski Club, completed the course in 42:56.2, a minute behind senior men’s pace-setter Sim (41:57.3).
“On a 15K you’ve got to pace it and I took it easy on the first lap,” said Gadd. “Home course advantage was huge. We’ve practiced all these hills, so having that is really helpful.
“We have a great wax team with Caledonia and my skis were amazing. Today, Graeme Moore was doing the waxing and (coaches) Ali (Cadell) and Tuppy (Hoehn) were great.”
Gadd was out of racing for four years while he completed the environmental and sustainability studies program at UNBC. The rebirth of the club this season got him going again as a ski racer.
In the U20 race, Jasper Kohut was feeling the muscle fatigue of Saturday’s mass start 10 km classic technique race. He’d been training all week on his classic skis expecting a sprint race but the cold weather forecast and wind chill that made it feel close to -20 C at noon Saturday forced organizers to switch to a mass-start event to reduce the time on the course Saturday for everyone.
Kohut just missed the podium on Saturday but climbed into bronze position in Sunday’s race.
“I was happy with my race, I was pretty sore from yesterday and I did better than I thought,” said Kohut, an 18-year-old who learned to ski in Whitehorse, is now in his first year studying fisheries and wildlife at UNBC.
Nick Veeken, a 21-year-old second-year chemistry student from Prince George, completed the UNBC medal trifecta when he won the U23 men’s interval start in 43:51.6.
“I was just trying to finish around the same time as Tanner McConkey (the fastest of the 15 km skiers) ,” said Veeken. “I crossed the finish at the same time as Tanner because he started about six minutes behind me. He passed me in the last lap, he’s really fast and I kind of tried to chase him down on the last 500 metres.”
Veeken entered just one race last season and he had no prior experience racing a 15 km course, but his training on the slopes over the past three months gave him the fitness he needed to get through it without incident.
“It felt pretty good, it felt a lot easier on some of the uphills than I imagined it would,” Veeken said. “I had to stay upright on the downhills and the corners and luckily did that. It was really nice skiing the trails here again. I’ve skied them a lot over the last 10 years and it’s nice to get back to racing.”
He took three years off racing before the UNBC Nordic team program got him going again and he feeds off his teammates and their shared motivation to train regularly for races.
UNBC revived its varsity Nordic ski team (cross-country skiing and biathlon) in 2024. The program is a partnership between UNBC and the Caledonia Nordic Ski Club.
UNBC skiers receive training plans as well as coaching/waxing support from the Caledonia club and compete in races wearing UNBC’s green and gold colours. The athletes pay their own trails fees and racing memberships at Otway Nordic Centre and have to cover their own travel expenses during races.
The UNBC ski club was initially formed by UNBC students Chris Paulson and Sean Rowell in the late 1990s. Former Olympic biathlete Tuppy Hoehn elevated the program when she was the head coach from 2003-05 and convinced the UNBC athletics department to sanction it. The club represented UNBC at Western Canadian and national championships and that college-university category still exists. The program went into dormancy shortly after Hoehn stepped down as coach.
Gadd was second in the senior men’s 10 km classic on Saturday and Veeken was the U23 classic race winner.
The three skiers will represent UNBC at the Teck BC Cup championships in Kelowna, Feb. 28-March 2 and the Nordiq Canada national championships in Canmore, Alta., Feb. 17-23.
