On a B.C. Cup weekend of bitter temperatures and too much snow at Otway Nordic Centre, Nikki Kassel wasn't worried about the cold.
She had every limb moving fast enough to stay warm. If only she hadn't run out of real estate, she might have been able to finish her freestyle race Saturday.
Kassel went a little too wide and caught a ski tip in the loose powder just as she and Jacqui Benson were hurtling down a steep approach and Kassel tumbled headfirst onto the trail. Still woozy from the impact, holding a broken pole, she walked off the course and back into the lodge to warm up, nursing a case of whiplash and a mild concussion.
"I had managed to catch Jacqui Benson, who started (15 seconds) ahead of me and I was a bit excited," said Kassel. "It's a tight left-hand corner and I came in too close and caught an edge and I've never come down that hard on skis, ever. I hit my head hard and snapped a super-expensive pole. But that's racing."
Bloody noses, broken poles, chilly toes, mild face frostbite and a deluge of fresh snow that buried the trails and highways leading to Otway were just some of the challenges the 164 racers faced on their Prince George weekend trip. The race-time temperature Saturday was -19.5 C, close to the -20 C cold-weather threshold of cancellation, but it didn't seem to bother Scott Forrest.
Forrest, 54, is back on the ski racing scene after a one-year hiatus to focus on running the Boston Marathon. His beard, mustache and nostrils were a mass of white icicles as he pushed across the finish line first in the master men's 50-59 year-old class, covering the five-kilometre course in 16 minutes 45 seconds.
"I feel better getting back to skiing, running's hard on you," said Forrest. "The cold wasn't bad. There's no wind. People forget how much better it is here with all the trees. The beard helps. You don't need a balaclava."
Justin Bennett of Prince George, 14, decided to move up an age category to get more competition and longer races. He still managed to finish fifth in the juvenile boys race and was seventh in Sunday's classic event. Bennett was 1:02 off the winning pace set by Zane Heyes of Vancouver and was glad his race Saturday was over after only 10 minutes.
"It was really cold and I felt frostbite all around my face and my feet and I noticed it a lot coming down the hills," Bennett said. "I like distance races and I skied up (from his usual midget class) because I wanted to do the five-kilometre course, but then it got cold and I got the 3.5 kilometre course."
Otway trails supervisor Jim Weed arrived at 5 a.m. Sunday to start packing the course and was still out with his crew when the races began at 10. Close to 25 centimetres fell overnight.
Caledonia coaches John Hagen and Leisbet Beaudry saw the fruits of their volunteer labour pay off in multiple medal finishes. The club won 15 medals in the classic race Sunday.
Forrest was one of five Caledonia Nordic Ski Club racers who were category winners in the freestyle race. Benson (open female), Sage Bialuski (midget girls 1), Sarah Beaudry (junior girls 1), Mike Smith (open male) and Hagen (master male 40-49) all won their races. Will Andal captured junior boys bronze.
The Caledonia medalists Sunday were: Sadie Bialuski (silver, atom girls); Quinn Neil and Erik Hoffman (respective gold and silver, atom boys); Hayden Neil (silver, peewee boys 2); Kaia Andal (bronze, peewee girls 3); Kristian Jensen-LeBlanc (bronze, peewee girls 4); Sage Bialuski (gold, midget girls 1); Sarah Beaudry (gold, junior girls 1); Benson (gold, open female); Hagen (gold, master male 40-49); Smith (gold, open male); Szilvia Bidner (gold, master female 30-39); Forrest and Pete Saar (respective silver and bronze, master male 50-59); and Lauri Karjaluoto (gold, master male 60-69).
"It was a real breakthrough, we got many of the racers on the B.C. Cup podium and that's pretty impressive," said Hagen. "The excitement is there for them and the other kids are feeling it, so as a team we're pretty happy with the progress we've made.
"Lots of the (Caledonia club) success has been in biathlon (which uses strictly freestyle technique) and these are kids that are getting some of their first medals in a classic race. We're trying to be a complete racing team and the results are showing."
