Junior Nationals Race Report

Last weekend we headed over to Gatineau, Quebec for the 2009 Junior National Championships. The weather was not ideal, the temp. was around 20 degrees with some thunder showers and hard rain. This made for some slippery conditions on the bike and a change in the run course. Early in the day the age group race had about 15 crashes so we knew we had to take the corners carefully. Despite the weather difficulties the races still ran smoothly with only minor delays to the start times.

The junior girls race started at 1:15. BC’s Hillary Wille was first out of the water, followed 18 seconds later by a group of six including Stevie. Then a group of four ten seconds later and a group of 7 including Racheal. Early on in the bike Stevie broke away with Christine from BC and opened up a 40 sec gap between them and the chase pack. Racheals was in the forth pack but worked on the bike to move her and her pack to the chase pack. The run consisted of two 2.5km loops. Racheal caught Stevie shortly after the 1.25km turn around but Stevie stayed with her until the final sprint where Racheal just beat Stevie to the line making them 10^th and 11^th place.

The junior guys race started around 2:00, and just like most races this year a lead group of 4 formed in the water and lead the way on to the bike. Josh and Mark were in 9^th and 10^th place out of the water, and were into a small chase pack behind the leaders. Riley was 2 packs behind that and then Trevor and Charles came out with the pack behind him. Unfortunately early into the first lap Mark got a flat and his day was done, and just a little later going around the turn around by transistion Riley took the corner too fast and crashed, ending his day. The group Josh was in got caught by the large pack behind him and after Cole Stewart crashed in the lead group and got back into the chase pack they closed the gap on the leaders down to 10 seconds on the last lap. So Josh came off the bike just a few seconds behind the leaders and Trevor about 1:30 back with Charles just a little bit further back. After the run Josh ended up in 16^th place overall Trevor 29^th and Charles 35^th.

Congratulations to all the athletes from other provinces who put on strong performances especially Allison Hooper 1^st, Gabrielle Edwards 2^nd and Marianne Hogan 3^rd in the Junior Girls, and Connor Hammond 1^st, Matt Vierula 2^nd and Marc-Antoine Christin 3^rd in the Junior Guys.

The team is now looking forward to there Canada Games training camp in Victoria to train with the BC team starting July 25^th which will lead them into their final race’s of the year which is Canada Games which takes place between August 15^th – 22^nd.

You can see some great pictures of the race here taken by Mark Bates from the BC team.