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From the FasterSkier archive — posts syndicated from athletes’ and coaches’ own blogs between 2004 and 2012, kept online as published. Current coverage is at fasterskier.com.

Tag: Quebec City sprints

  • Quebec Report: Abundant Snow, French Onion Soup and a ‘Brutal’ Sprint Course

    Quebec Report: Abundant Snow, French Onion Soup and a ‘Brutal’ Sprint Course

    QUEBEC CITY — The Plains of Abraham just outside the walls of Quebec City are best known for a major battle that changed the direction of North American history in 1759.  On March 4 and 5, the Ski Tour Canada will reignite international rivalries on the same plains.

    A recent 40 centimeters (16 inches) of snowfall means there is no shortage of snow. Race organizers are spending more effort digging out sidewalks and pathways than covering the course. Thursday’s training day was cold and windy, reaching -15 Celsius (5 Fahrenheit) in the afternoon, and only the Russians used the entire official training session. Temperatures are expected to warm up to -9 Celsius (16 Fahrenheit) for the freestyle sprint heats on Friday, which start at 3:30 p.m. Eastern time.

    Digging out the downtown sidewalks on Thursday in Quebec City. (Photo: Peggy Hung)
    Digging out the downtown sidewalks on Thursday in Quebec City. (Photo: Peggy Hung)

    Saturday will be the 10/15 k freestyle pursuits, with the tour leader starting first.  As with the Gatineau sprint, there are very few trees and little protection from the wind.  The feel of the course will change dramatically with wind direction.

    Despite the name, the plains are not entirely flat, with rolling hills on top of a cliff overlooking the St. Lawrence river. The sprint course (1.7 k for the men; 1.5 k for the women) is relatively flat, with a gentle climb out of the stadium, a long gentle descent to the city walls, and a gentle climb back before a steep-wall climb returns the racers to the stadium.

    The women finish with a gentle descent followed by a wide-open corner into the finish straight.  The men turn sharp left before the women’s final corner for a steep climb up and down a horseshoe, which will make the men’s race tactically very different. 

    “The last 500 meters of tomorrow’s sprint is going to be long and brutal,” Canadian World Cup Team and local racer Alex Harvey said at a press conference on Thursday. “As I get older, I’m a little slower in short sprints, but this is a longer sprint, so it should suit me better.”

    A skier navigates the sprint course just outside the city walls in Quebec City. (Photo: Peggy Hung)
    A skier navigates the sprint course just outside the city walls in Quebec City. (Photo: Peggy Hung)

    The steep climbs stayed firm on training day, but could easily turn to sugar by the end of the race day.  The turn at the bottom of the course is easy enough in Zone 1, but it will likely be far more exciting in at race pace in in a group.

    The pursuit course spends more time on the top of the exposed ridge with moderate climbs and great views of the river.  Where the sprint course was almost entirely untransformed (squeaky) snow, the more exposed sections of the distance track were heavily transformed and very fast.

    By the end of official training, one of the climbs was a mix of polished transformed snow and windblown squeaky drifts, with the fast line snaking back and forth across the trail.  The longest distance course descent combined particularly fast snow with a strong tailwind, making the crashpads on the trees seem justified. The one tricky turn from the sprint course will be a bigger factor with the entire pack arriving together.

    “Quebec is such a great venue to host a World Cup,” Harvey said. “There’s so much snow here, we never see that in Europe. We have some races in downtown in Europe, but trucks bring the snow, it’s dirty snow. Here it’s white everywhere, the course is great with fun bridges here and there. The European find it really surprising. They keep pointing at the Fleuve [St. Lawrence River] and asking if it’s a lake, a river! For many of them, it’s their first trip here.”

    A hairpin turn around a cannon at the top of the freestyle pursuit course, which will be used on Saturday at the fourth stage of the Ski Tour Canada in Quebec City. (Photo: Gerry Furseth)
    A hairpin turn around a cannon at the top of the freestyle pursuit course, which will be used on Saturday at the fourth stage of the Ski Tour Canada in Quebec City. (Photo: Gerry Furseth)

    The old city of Quebec is one of the few remaining walled cities in North America and has a distinctly Quebecois culture.  Greetings are uniformly in French, although most people will quickly switch to English.

    The city is also known for its food. No visit is complete without a stop at the Chic Shack for their famous poutine, in the Musee du Fort, five minutes walk from the racecourse.  Aux Anciens Canadiens, through the city gates and two blocks straight ahead, mixes traditional and modern food and encapsulates much of the local food history. As the weather is expected to remain cold, a good choice anywhere is the regional specialty soupe a l’oignon gratinee.  Outsiders may know this as French onion soup.

    On Thursday afternoon, the old city was filled with U.S.. family and friends, with nordic logos outnumbering the ‘normal’ tourists.

    More from the press conference with Harvey (translated from French to English):

    “This year’s sprints have been relatively shorter, at 1.3 to 1.4 kilometers, compared to [Friday’s] 1.7-kilometer sprint. Where the shorter sprints last a little over two minutes, this one will go over the three minutes mark. My endurance should enable me to keep pushing after the acid lactic build up, which usually kicks in at two minutes.”

    (In English) “The natural terrain [on the plains of Abraham] is really hard, and then they added a little extra, little bridges, to make it harder.  So this is going to be one of the toughest sprints of the whole circuit tomorrow, everyone agrees to that. It’s long, it’s hard, the last 500 meters is going to be just brutal.”

    Canada's Alex Harvey racing to ninth in the second stage of the Ski Tour Canada, the men's 17.5 k classic mass start, on Wednesday in Montreal, Quebec. (Photo: John Lazenby/Lazenbyphoto.com)
    Canada’s Alex Harvey racing to ninth in the second stage of the Ski Tour Canada, the men’s 17.5 k classic mass start, on Wednesday in Montreal, Quebec. (Photo: John Lazenby/Lazenbyphoto.com)

    “I spent ten days training at altitude in Canmore in preparation for the second half of Ski Tour Canada, missing the last World Cup weekend in Finland. I’m really anxious to see the rewards in Canmore next week. The first six days of that altitude training were really frustrating. I felt really tired and weak during intervals session, which pissed me off! Altitude training is tough for everybody. I bet some guys will explode during the skiathlon in Canmore.” [Note: Canmore is at an elevation of 1,400 meters above sea level. Quebec City is at 100 meters.]

    “My goal for [Friday’s] sprint is to qualify for the semis, which would give me a 30-second bonus overall.

    “A top-five placement overall is still realistic, even the podium is not out of reach.”

    FasterSkier: What differences, if any, do you see between the European Tour de Ski and the Ski Tour Canada?

    AH: “The traveling is a big distance. The distances are really small in Europe. You can go from Italy, to Germany, to Switzerland easily and in no time. Here, we have to take a plane to Canmore. The logistics of the Ski Tour Canada are much more complex. That was probably our biggest challenge up to that point. The jet lag is another factor. I did the trip from Montreal to Calgary several times in the past, so I’m used to it. Other Canadians did so as well, so it should play to our advantage.”

    — François Léger Dionne contributed reporting

    The freestyle sprint course in Quebec City.
    The freestyle sprint course in Quebec City. (Click to enlarge)
  • Jumps, Bumps & Curves, Oh My! International Racers Reflect on Québec World Cup

    Jumps, Bumps & Curves, Oh My! International Racers Reflect on Québec World Cup

    Canadian Alex Harvey leads racers over the step down/jump, which was used for the first time in a World Cup on Dec. 7 during the 1.6-kilometer team sprints in Quebec City.

    QUÉBEC CITY— It was an unprecedented stop, an unknown to everyone who raced there. Even the Canadians weren’t entirely sure what to expect in Québec City last weekend for the province’s first World Cup city sprints.

    Nobody did. Spectators came out by the thousands. Gestev president and chief organizer Patrice Drouin estimated 50,000 people visited the venue in front of the Parliament building throughout the two days, with team sprints on Friday and individual sprints on Saturday.

    That was a pretty good turnout considering there was little to no snow elsewhere in Québec in the weeks and days leading up to the event. Nearly 140 athletes from 17 nations showed up as well without knowing how competitive the sprints would be. (Top skiers like Marit Bjørgen, Therese Johaug, Petter Northug and Dario Cologna skipped the trip to Canada to prepare for the Tour de Ski.)

    Spectators got quite the World Cup experience Dec. 7-8 in Quebec City.

    It didn’t really matter. There was enough else going on to keep people entertained and buzzing about the Québec World Cup.

    For one, race organizers introduced a step down, or a jump, at the tail end of the 800-meter sprint course. It wasn’t huge, starting at a height of about 30 centimeters, but it did create enough space for a small “Ville de Québec” banner and a miniature ledge for racers to ski off.

    The brainchild of Drouin, the step down was approved by the International Ski Federation (FIS) last spring to be used for the first time at the Québec World Cup. Coaches and racers had mixed oreactions – some said they didn’t see the point and others wanted it bigger – but in the end, few expressed strong feelings about it.

    “It’s not a jump. It’s a bump,” said former Norwegian skier and Olympic champion Tor-Arne Hetland, a sprint coach for Switzerland.

    “As long as it’s fair, then it’s good,” he added. “It shouldn’t be a problem, but it has to be well done.”

    “It was too small. Bring us on a bigger one,” said Saturday’s individual sprint winner from Sweden, Emil Jönsson. “We don’t want to have a crash race. The strongest man should win, but it can be fun if we do it in a good way. Not a back flip, just a normal jump.”

    The jump, bump, whatever you call it wasn’t really a game changer. A few athletes tumbled on or before it, but that generally happened when they were vying for position after the last downhill curve. Some people took more of an issue with the course’s curviness. Hetland suggested fewer curves and more straightaways, but said overall, “the track is good.”

    The first semifinal of the Quebec World Cup women’s team sprint crests the step down, which was used for the first time in a cross-country World Cup on Dec. 7.

    Norwegian sprint coach Ulf Morten Aune was slightly more animated about the obstacle, calling it an unnecessary spectacle.

    “There are enough curves and other stuff,” he said. “You do not have to do stuff like that. … This is not a circus, it is cross-country.”

    From the standpoint of someone who’s designed mountain-bike courses, Drouin was curious whether it would work in cross-country. Twenty years ago, mountain bike races didn’t incorporate jumps, and now they do. He decided to give it a try and proposed the step down to FIS Cross-Country Race Director Pierre Mignerey, who ran it by homologation experts.

    “They didn’t say no, so that means yes,” Mignerey said. He garnered the approval of FIS and gave Drouin the go-ahead.

    “I know it’s a big deal because the fact that Pierre got out of that commission meeting and just gave me a big slap in the back and said, ‘Your jump is approved,’ I was surprised,” Drouin said. “I didn’t even think it was a case for a commission as technical as cross-country. Before changing things you have to get approval from the whole family.”

    Drouin said FIS Cross-Country requirements were stricter than other world-class sporting events he’s organized (i.e. snowboarding and mountain biking), but he’d do it again without hesitation.

    He created the step down knowing FIS inspectors might shoot down the final product and make him dismantle it before the races. It was ultimately OKed, but Drouin made a few alterations before the races started Friday.

    “Everybody said, ‘If you can take this little uphill out, then we are fine,’ ” he said after hearing from athletes and coaches on Thursday. But the jump wasn’t finished yet; training wasn’t supposed to open until Friday morning so the feedback was based on a work in progress.

    “The jump is was not an issue for us; it was not a deal breaker,” Drouin said. “It was just an additional thing to open up options.”

    Mignerey said also it wasn’t a big deal, just a first step in something that could be used more in the future. The improvements made after Thursday quelled most people’s complaints, and Mignerey was open to seeing more of these jumps perhaps between 40 and 50 centimeters tall. “Why not?” he said, adding that it fits with city sprints.

    At the same time, this doesn’t need to be something FIS standardizes, he added.

    “We already have enough rules,” Mignerey said.

    Some people just don’t understand it. Russia’s Gleb Retivykh said it would be better if Québec didn’t use one again “because it’s not interesting.”

    “He don’t like it,” said Russian wax tech Urmas Vyalbe, who served as Retivykh’s translator. “He asked many times, ‘What is this? Why?’ ”

    Norway’s Maiken Caspersen Falla, who placed third in Saturday’s individual sprint, said she hardly noticed it.

    “I was thinking about it during the warmup, but in the race I just forgot about it,” she said. “I don’t see the point in cross-country skiing to have a jump, but if the crowd and the TV watchers like to see a jump, maybe we should have it.”

    From a revenue point of view, it adds an attractive advertizing space for sponsors.

    “It’s fun,” Slovenian head coach Marko Gracer said. “I think it’s also for the TV promotion.”

    The Big Picture

    Overall, participants’ reactions to Québec’s first World Cup were less divided. Gracer said it was well organized and perfect for a city sprint despite the challenges organizers faced in keeping the snow in tact.

    Hard-packed conditions on Thursday deteriorated to a softer, sugar-like base by the end of Friday’s races. Temperatures above freezing made it difficult for groomers to change the snow structure, which left racers struggling to stay quick and upright in on Saturday.

    “The snow was perfect Thursday and then it dried up when [they] packed the snow over again,” Hetland said. “There was not enough, it was getting soft … so that was too bad.”

    Regardless, he said the course was fair and he’d like to see the World Cup return to Québec or at least Canada every year. Right now, the circuit visits North America every three years.

    “I think it was absolutely something for the future and they should keep on doing this,” Hetland said. “When you get good skiers in Canada and America you should definitely every year have races here. Let’s make the cross-country family big. The World Cup opening should be in Canmore and here and then we should go home and then Tour de Ski.”

    He added that Canada deserves to host the world’s best skiers at home. Having North American World Cups at the beginning of the season would eliminate the timing conflict for those preparing for the Tour de Ski in late December. On the other hand, snow is usually scarce or non-existent in most parts of the U.S. and Canada in November. Just 10 days before the Québec event, organizers were unable to make much snow. One option is to hold the races at the end of the season in March.

    Norwegian Pål Golberg said earlier races in Canada would make adjusting to the time difference easier: once back in Europe, they’d be there for good.

    “I think this works for those who aren’t skiing the Tour de Ski, but if we had this two weekends in November, I think there would be even more skiers here,” Golberg said.

    In his first experience racing in North America, the 22-year-old would like to come back.

    “The crowd is really enthusiastic and I think that’s maybe one of the most important things for the cross-country sport,” Golberg said.

    “This is the best place, this town,” said Vyalbe, who was also visiting Québec for the first time. “When my friend called to me and asked, ‘Where are you?’ I said, ‘I am in Québec [pronounced Koo-bec].’ He said, ‘Ohh, the best place.’ ”

    With the next stop in Canmore, Norway’s Øystein Pettersen said it’ll be hard to leave after the races Dec. 13-16.

    “I love Canada,” Pettersen said. “Canada reminds me of Norway only everything is a lot bigger, people are a lot more open-minded. In Norway we like to focus on ourself and don’t talk, don’t smile. In Canada everybody’s happy.”

    — Nat Herz and Topher Sabot contributed reporting

  • After First World Cup, Québec Organizer Wants One Every Year

    After First World Cup, Québec Organizer Wants One Every Year

    Gestev president and CEO Patrice Drouin, the chief organizer of the Québec World Cup Dec. 7-8, at a Sprint Québec conference. (Courtesy photo)

    QUÉBEC CITY – When Gestev president and CEO Patrice Drouin agreed to host the first cross-country World Cup in Québec in the summer of 2011, he wasn’t entirely sure what he was getting himself into. He had never held a nordic race before, but with plenty of experience in other unique sporting events – Red Bull Crashed Ice, Mountain Bike World Championships, etc. – the Québec-based organizer was sure he could deliver.

    What came next was a slew of meetings, administrative hoops and headaches over Mother Nature that might scare some from heading a similar event again. Yet as Drouin reflected on the two-day World Cup and the preparation leading up to it, he appeared relaxed. Sure, he had FIS Snowboard World Championships up next Jan. 16-27 and was operating on about four hours of sleep, but that was more than he usually got during his high-profile events.

    While Sprint Québec required a significant investment (around $2.5 million) and learning curve to meet International Ski Federation (FIS) standards, Drouin said it was undoubtedly a success and he’s excited for the next cross-country World Cup planned for 2016. FasterSkier found out more in an interview Saturday night.

    FasterSkier: How did the event go overall?

    Patrice Drouin: We went from the beginning of the organization of it, like Day 1 on site November 6, which we started to make snow. From there we went from a good plan to maybe one not at all because we had no snow. But then everything came together recently about 10 days ago, we had the snow. So that was, for us, the biggest challenge. When you sign on for an event like that a year and a half ago, December 7 and 8, you feel confident that you will do that but when it comes closer and closer and you don’t have snow …

    Athletes train on the 800-meter World Cup sprint course in downtown Quebec City on Dec. 6. (Gestev photo/Steve Deschenes)

    FS: Did you consider moving it to Mont Sainte-Anne?

    PD: We had some backups, but the original plan was really our focus. To take it away from here and bring it to a ski resort at the last moment would be a disaster. We felt we would achieve something doing it here, but our biggest challenge was really dealing with cross-country at FIS. It’s totally new for us, it’s really different … it’s very detailed, technical things and we are not used to it. We can improvise a little more in the other sports, we can change things, we can be a little more creative. This is formatted, you know? You follow a format.

    FS: How was working with FIS?

    PD: That’s fine for us. What we went through is a normal process of getting used to something. New ground’s slippery sometimes but you manage to get through so that’s what happened. The result is amazing, above my expectations, really.

    FS: How did you go about getting a jump, or step down, approved for the first time in a World Cup sprint?

    PD: The first idea was to try to innovate and do something different and that was our goal and I proposed it to Pierre Mignery, the FIS [race director], at the FIS Congress. He went to the FIS cross-country ski commission and he got the approval of trying it here. I said, ‘OK it’s just maybe a step for the sport in one direction’ and just the fact that the athletes respected that and did play with it is already is something. It’s a small thing but maybe one day we can do bank turns because the sport is fast, very challenging and we must work on the courses to make it extremely nice. This will evolve in a year, just the jump is a little thing. It’s not very relevant at the moment but it will be in the future I’m sure.

    FS: We heard your inspiration came from mountain-bike courses. Is that right?

    PD: That’s the way we designed the course here because my background is mountain bike. When I design mountain bike courses, it’s a mixture of different elements and I felt comfortable to think about delivering this type of course. First of all, when you do a first drawing and you give it to an athlete like Alex [Harvey], he knows the place so he comes to me and says, ‘That’s very much feasible, you know, it’s OK’. The curves need to be defined but the sense and the orientation, [but] he felt it was fine as a point of view of a racer so that told me we were in the right direction so we proposed the course and the location to FIS. But where do you start with a concept like that? There is no books about it, you must design it, you must think about this and that.

    FS: What did you learn from this event, and what would you change in the future?

    PD: Crowd circulation, giant screens, you know, bigger, more screens. But it’s just a matter of budget. We had to deliver it in the right way and it’s a free event, nobody pays. Who pays? We invested a lot of money and we decided to deliver, there were three screens, so we are fine with three screens at the moment. For sure, some people didn’t see a lot, that happens at many sports events. But I think public flow around the track, access to all areas, televisions with screens, and the athlete village a little bit closer to the track and wax cabins maybe closer. We’ll read a lot of notes in post-event report from all the staff. For the media to watch at the finish, we would put some screens so people can work from their location preparing for the finish, watching the race.

    FS: How many spectators were there?

    PD: We will have final results of our studies in about two months. We had people taking notes and counting and asking questions for where people come from and things like that. We had about 50,000 people for the whole event, this is people passing by the venue. On Friday, we had a crowd in the morning, we had a crowd at noon for lunch and we had a crowd for the finals in the afternoon, so we had three different crowds [and] we evaluate all. And plus the family site a little bit above on the street, the initiation site for kids, so we had special group there that probably never got [to the race venue] so we calculate the circulation. We believe we reached about 50,000 in the whole event.

    That was pretty much our goal. When we started to sell the site to sponsors, we were thinking of the site being able to accommodate 75 [thousand] so this is how we based the projection: 75,000 people total, but publically we hoped to get 50,000 so we are in between. Not reaching 75,000, it’s not a problem, there’s no sponsors that are disappointed, nobody. Everybody is excited about what happened and what’s next.

    An athlete rounds a corner while training on the World Cup sprint course in downtown Quebec City on Dec. 6. (Gestev photo/Steve Deschenes)

    FS: What feedback have you had from FIS?

    PD: It’s really positive, significantly.

    FS: Would you consider hosting a cross-country World Cup again?

    PD: We are doing it again, February 2016. We have a window in Canada in February 2016, so we will be doing it there. But can we do it earlier? We’ll see. If things change, the experience today for FIS and everybody, it’s new. It’s not expected probably and so it will make it’s way to the future. We are open to do a race tomorrow, we would be open to do the next race next year, for sure, anytime. We cannot [have the] Canadian Championships organized like this, it’s too big. It’s too big of an investment and the Canadian Championships cannot bring enough money to support it, but at World Cup next year, we would do it. We would do it every year. The public reaction was great.

    FS: What do you think about hosting one in the U.S.?

    PD: We are able to do it in the states, we could do that. It’s just a matter of finding the right partners over there. Once we got the details of a cross-country ski event that we didn’t know, things that we learned on our way to this event, now we have it. … We’ve done it with different sports so we can work anywhere. Especially on the East Coast of the states, for example, it’s very easy, that would be awesome to deliver an event that would team up with Québec so when the athletes land they have a combination of events that make sense in a short distance.

    FS: Where are you thinking on the East Coast?

    PD: I have a lot of contacts in ski resorts, but I’m talking more about urban-style events like here, so Central Park, Boston, places like that that we should, with the U.S. federation, to start searching and test the interest and then move on. We have a few years ahead of us, so that’s OK. I think that’s what is cool is we have a little bit of time, but the success of this weekend will help us a lot to stimulate a new venue on the East Coast to jump on board and just come with us. I think we have everything now: we have media coverage, TV coverage, we have the success, we have the reaction of the organizers, nobody’s complaining to be here. Maybe some people say traveling to Canmore or traveling to Québec is a pain, but not many. We gain that credibility so this will work for us for the next step and that was the goal, an investment and a success that will project us in the future and maybe be able to bring a U.S. venue with what we acquire as an experience.

    FS: Did you take a loss on this event?

    PD: I see it as an investment. Saying that we will be losing money, no, it’s not a loss it’s an investment to something that will generate in the future more and more interest. The sports we are doing, like snowboard, mountain bike, BMX, cross-country skiing, are high-profile events, but are sports that are, I mean, attractive the way we present it. We don’t do sports events, we do events. That’s the difference. We generate sponsors, we generate revenue and that is enough to keep us going, that’s the way it is. Sometimes we have to invest in a sport or an event that will become profitable in the next years and profitable is necessary for a company to be able to do what we do for cross-country skiing. As long as we create something with that, it’s great. It’s our way of doing things.

    FS: How long would it take to make money off this kind of event?

    PD: I think it was profitable this weekend. We’re happy with everything. It will be [profitable], but not every three years, it cannot be every three years. Maybe three years we do the next one, but after that, it has to be annual. We cannot leave on three years because there is a loss of momentum. The sponsors that were here, can you imagine where they’ll be three years from now? Marketing managers change, probably the our contacts are not there any more, they changed the strategy, they forgot about the success, we will have to sign them now for 2016 or it’s impossible.

    We need to already start talking to [this year’s sponsors] about 2016. Three years is the maximum, every year best, two years feasible, three years tough, four years, forget it. Four years, people don’t remember because so many things pass in four years. Where will be in four years from now? It’s a long time. Today, it’s a long time. In the past, it was just what we were looking for in four years. Now, four years is so far. Things change and streets change, commerce changes, just our own sponsors this year. Québecor was our main sponsor. In four years will they be interested in urban sports events? I don’t know, I cannot say. Next year, sure. But four years, nobody can promise, nobody will sign anything. Three years is even close to four, but everybody knows now it’s in three years, and it can only get better.

  • Notes and Quotes: Québec Individual Sprint Edition

    The Bates College cheering section on Saturday during the Quebec World Cup 1.6 k men’s and women’s skate sprints.

    QUEBEC CITY – There were a lot of North Americans milling around the downtown World Cup sprint venue this weekend, but the ones inside of the fence were doing the most work.

    That’s not to say cheering doesn’t take energy, too. It just taxes different muscles.

    Either way, many racers found the support of thousands of spectators invaluable during the 1.6-kilometer individual sprint on Saturday – even if they didn’t make the top 30 to qualify.

    “It was a tunnel of noise,” said Patrick O’Brien of Vermont’s Craftsbury Green Racing Project (CGRP) after placing 53rd in the prelim. “The closest thing I can think of for me was Dartmouth Carnival at home times one hundred. Everywhere out there people were screaming your name and that was just awesome to have everyone come out. It is good for nordic skiing in general. I think everyone would say that this event was a huge success.”

    That positive feeling was echoed by most competitors regardless of their results.

    “I can’t get over how awesome the crowd is,” said Sylvan Ellefson (Ski & Snowboard Club Vail/Team HomeGrown), after placing 57th.  “The Bates [College] crew being out here again, my alma mater, that was just so loud so powerful going through there. We are in Canada, I’m from the United States, but it still feels like we are on home territory.”

    Eighteen-year-old Corey Stock of the Cambridge Sports Union, who placed 47th in her first World Cup, had a feeling a lot of people would come out for the event, but she had no idea what it would be like.

    “I just feel so lucky to have this be my first World Cup, a city sprint in Quebec with all these Americans cheering,” Stock said. “It was just really cool. My parents are here, my brother is here and the whole Dartmouth Ski Team is here so it is so awesome hearing them cheer on the side of the course. … I couldn’t have asked for a more exciting atmosphere.”

    As for the snow conditions, many North Americans used words like “sugary,” “soft,” and “mushy” to describe them – at least for the qualifier (organizers firmed it up for the heats).

    Jesse Cockney (AWCA) en route to placing 32nd in the Quebec World Cup individual sprint qualifier, 0.25 seconds outside the top 30.

    “Your tips were just cutting through mounds of sugar on all the turns so you tried to keep [them] up on top,” said Reese Hanneman of Alaska Pacific University (APU), who was 61st. “You were trying to hammer, but you’re also doing preventative damage control.”

    “I’m a bigger guy, but I’m a really bigger guy,” said Skyler Davis of the Stratton Mountain School T2 Team (SMS) and U.S. Ski Team (USST) after ranking 69th. “A big guy is like 180, and 25 pounds more …  With this stuff, any little movement your legs die a little bit, it was just so squirrelly.”

    Any experience on similar conditions mattered. Thomsen D’Hont of the Yellowknife Ski Club placed 65th in his first World Cup because of that.

    “I train in these conditions all the time in Whistler [British Columbia] so like the harder the conditions are, the better I am,” he said. “It was hard, but for sure, pretty fun … You can’t just focus on going hard, you have to focus on skiing well.”

    “I definitely went harder than I ever have before,” said APU skier Lauren Fritz, who was 55th in the qualifier. “My feet and shins were pretty tense, which I don’t think helped. … But the energy, oh my God, it’s so exciting. It’s easy to go harder.”

    “It was really tough; I just tried to ski as smooth as possible,” Canadian National Team member Perianne Jones said after placing 38th in her first race since tying her personal-best of 12th in a World Cup sprint in Kuusamo, Finland.

    “I know the course really well, but it’s never been as mushy as this,” she said.

    In his first individual World Cup, Russell Kennedy of the Alberta World Cup Academy (AWCA) placed 45th.

    “I like harder conditions,” he said. “I’m a bit bigger of a guy and the soft isn’t usually good for me, but I thought I skied it good all things considered. I don’t know, it was super fun.”

    Ryan Scott (SSCV/Team HomeGrown) wasn’t so comfortable on the course.

    “Just because we’ve been rollerskiing so much I haven’t had a lot of on-snow time, especially soft snow, not my thing so I’ll definitely be looking for a harder track in Canmore,” Scott said.

    Several skiers would remember the highlights of their weekend, which ranged.

    “I was really excited to race the team sprint,” said Andrea Dupont (Rocky Mountain Racers), who ranked 48th in the individual race after placing 20th in the team sprint with Kate Brennan (AWCA).

    “I hadn’t had an opportunity to do that before on a World Cup so that was really a positive experience,” Dupont added. “The weekend before we got to race with some of the Swiss girls in Canmore and they were actually the team right in front of us and we got to play cat-and-mouse with them which was a lot of fun.”

    While the two hail from different teams, Dupont and Brennan were really looking forward to the Canmore World Cup at home later this week.

    “There’s a lot of tactics on it and I am itching,” Dupont said. “I really, really want to make the top 30 there. This is super fun though. This is an amazing atmosphere and I hope it does something good for North American and Canadian skiing.”

    “I learned a lot just skiing in the different conditions,” said Brennan, who was 54th on Saturday. “Canmore’s been rock-solid this year so we haven’t had a chance to work in slush like this or just the deep pellets. It was cool, Quebec City put on quite a show.”

    “There’s a lot to take away from it,” said Jesse Cockney (AWCA), who just missed qualifying in 32nd. “I mean, just being ready for everything and just being able to go with the flow. The events are so big that things go wrong with them and you’ve got to just roll with the punches and just be relaxed, that’s the big thing.”

    He’s noticed how Canada’s top national-team racers Devon Kershaw and Alex Harvey usually adjust and tried to mimic them.

    “They’re pros at adjusting to jet lag, traveling long days, eating weird food, sleeping in weird rooms,” Cockney said. “I’m getting to the at point but I’m not quite a professional yet. Training with them in the summer helped a lot to see how they live every day. Training is above and beyond everything else for them.”

    That raises the question: what does it take to get to the next level? Holly Brooks (APU/USST), who was 36th said she didn’t have it.

    “It was hard to push it so I was really hoping to come in with a better qualification than that,” Brooks said.

    Ida Sargent (CGRP/USST) charges ahead in bib 1 to start things off in the 1.6 k Quebec World Cup individual freestyle sprints on Saturday. She was 44th in the qualifier. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)

    Ida Sargent (CGRP/USST) placed 44th after being the first starter out on the course and wasn’t satisfied, either.

    “I just was, like, frantic, never found any flow out there and was just really rushed,” Sargent said. “It was tricky conditions. I couldn’t really go hard and get it going. I was struggling out there and I think skiing first I couldn’t focus. I felt like I was just being chased down.”

    Simi Hamilton (Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation) was another USST member who finished short of his expectations in failing to make the rounds. He placed 33rd.

    “I didn’t feel very good, but I just tried to stay light on my feet and just tried to stay upright,” he said after the qualifier. “It’s still early in the season and I never historically skied that fast early on. I was able to qualify in Kuusamo last weekend which is a good sign and hopefully I’ll just keep climbing throughout the whole season.”

    Phil Widmer (AWCA), who was 55th, said he felt like he skied the qualifier “reasonably well,” yet he had to reflect back and figure out where he lost time.

    “I’m not sure if my body was a little bit off or I didn’t technically execute,” Widmer said. “I might have been missing a little snap, but I need to be able to ski through those sorts of efforts. You train all year for it.”

    Dakota Blackhorse-von Jess (Bend Endurance Academy), who ranked 38th, felt much differently with positive feelings throughout the day.

    “This is the first time I felt good this season,” he said. “I’m a big up-and-down guy. When I’m high, I’m really jacked up. [Saturday] morning I wanted to race so everything was perfect. If I was the best in the world, that’s how I think I would feel. It just wasn’t enough today, I guess.”

    Caitlin Gregg of Central Cross Country (CXC), who was 49th, reflected on her race and tried to pick up tips from others.

    “It was tough to decide whether or not it was a high-tempo or a high-power day,” Gregg said. “I think somehow giving good powerful strokes, but obviously not bogging down, it’s a finessing of the ski. I could definitely tell some girls were pretty good at that.”

    One of her highlights was watching Kikkan Randall, whom she placed sixth with in a team sprint at the 2010 Olympics, win the team sprint in Quebec City.

    “That team is destined for big things,” she said. “That was sweet to watch.”

    Personally, she said the experience was great and an affirmation that her training was working.

    “This is why we do it weekend after weekend in the states to earn our berths over here,” she said. “Every time I come to these I’m reenergized for the next training or the next race cycle or whatnot. This is what you think back to when you’re training in the summer time and in the nasty fall weather. This is the best.”

    “Oh my God, it’s like a dream,” said APU skier Kate Fitzgerald, who was 52nd. “Especially to watch Jessie and Kikkan win. I was like, ‘I just watched history and I got to be here in person, too.’ ”

    “I went to bed last night and I was like, ‘Wow this is incredible what I’m getting to do,’ ” Kennedy said. “Especially downtown Quebec with all the spectators and stuff, it’s the first time I’ve been to a nordic race and felt like it’s a real sporting event, almost like a football game or something. It’s an unbelievable experience.”

    ***

  • Best of the Rest: Caldwell 14th in Québec World Cup Sprint

    Best of the Rest: Caldwell 14th in Québec World Cup Sprint

    Sweden’s Ida Ingemarsdotter (6), Norway’s Ingvild Flugstad Oestberg (5) and American Sophie Caldwell (26) charging for the finish of the Quebec World Cup 1.6 k skate sprint quarterfinal on Saturday. Ingemarsdotter and Oestberg placed first and second to advance while Caldwell settled for third and a career-best 14th overall.

    QUEBEC CITY – For someone who’s never raced a World Cup individual skate sprint before, Sophie Caldwell of the Stratton Mountain School T2 Team didn’t show it.

    The 22-year-old from Peru, Vt., started off Saturday’s 1.6-kilometer sprint by making the top-30 qualifying standard in 26th (13.85 seconds behind winner Mona-Lisa Malvalehto of Finland). Caldwell later led her quarterfinal out of the start and settled into third position. As the group began its second loop, Caldwell closely trailed Swedish leader Ida Ingemarsdotter and Norwegian Ingvild Flugstad Oestberg, who would go on to place third and fourth, respectively, in the final behind U.S. winner Kikkan Randall.

    Wearing the American race suit for the first time in her life, Caldwell ended up third in the heat ahead of Russian Anastasia Dotsekno, 0.6 seconds behind winner Ingemarsdotter. It wasn’t quite enough to advance to the semifinals and Caldwell ultimately placed 14th.

    Sophie Caldwell of the Stratton Mountain School T2 Team after finishing third in her quarterfinal of the Quebec World Cup 1.6 k freestyle sprint on Saturday.

    “It was really fun,” Caldwell said after the round. “I had a good start so I was lucky to get out in third.”

    She quickly realized it was difficult to pass on the barricaded sprint course, an 800-meter loop on the grounds in front of Québec’s Parliament building. She tried to make her move on the finishing stretch, but couldn’t get the inside lane and held her own for third.

    “No one got in front of me and that was the same order of finish, I think,” she said.

    Pleased with her performance, she said the crowd helped pull her through.

    “Especially in the beginning when they zoom in on each person,” she said of the TV coverage. “For Sadie [Bjornsen] and me, the crowd roared and for everyone else it was pretty quiet.”

    Also in Caldwell’s quarterfinal, Bjornsen of Alaska Pacific University (APU) and the U.S. Ski Team (USST) finished sixth for 27th overall in her first World Cup race of the season while healing tendonitis in her foot. After qualifying in 15th, Bjornsen trailed her quarterfinal from the start, but held her own and remained in contention for most of the race.

    “When you’re skiing in the back of the pack, you have to surge really hard and then snow plow … it’s funny back there,” Bjornsen said. “But it’s easy to get boxed out.”

    Halfway through the second lap, she avoided colliding with Dotsenko, who nearly fell. Bjornsen treated the race as a learning experience in how to move around people.

    “It was good practice for me,” she said.

    As for her foot: “It’s actually doing really well,” Bjornsen said. “I got some new boots and that helped a lot.”

    Hanna Kolb (GER), Becca Rorabaugh (USA) and Bettina Gruber (SUI) try to untangle themselves early in their quarterfinal of the Quebec World Cup individual skate sprint on Saturday.

    Also representing APU, Becca Rorabaugh qualified in 22nd and placed fifth in her quarterfinal after a getting caught up with Germany’s Hanna Kolb and Switzerland’s Bettina Gruber on the first uphill corner. Locking ankles with Gruber, Rorabaugh spun around and spent several seconds trying to free her ski.

    “I definitely got a pretty good start and then I got a little tangled up and then, like, super tangled up,” Rorabaugh said with a laugh. “I mean, that’s how it goes. Next time.”

    Regardless, Rorabaugh placed 24th overall for her best individual World Cup result by 31 places.

    “I am incredibly stoked,” she said. “I love this! I love the crowd. I love the course. I’m having the time of my life and this morning I may have had the race of my life so I’m pretty happy.”

    After winning her first World Cup title with Randall in the team sprint Friday, Jessie Diggins (SMS/USST) qualified in 17th and went on to place 27th overall after falling on top of the bridge during the first lap of her quarterfinal.

    “It was a little heartbreaking,” Diggins said. “It was really hard for me to balance, seeing as the snow was no longer a soft sandpit [compared to the qualifier]. I just wasn’t quite stable on my feet. … I didn’t give up, I worked as hard as I could to catch back up, but I just didn’t have enough left.”

    She placed sixth in her heat, 6.1 seconds behind German winner Denise Herrmann.

    “When your expectations are raised, not making it on is definitely, like, a let-down,” Diggins said. “[But Friday] was such a cool thing, and my teammates qualified so I’m super psyched, you know? The fall was my bad. It wasn’t the equipment or the skis or anything.”

    In the end, it was the experience that she’ll remember.

    “The crowd is just fantastic,” Diggins said. “I don’t even know how many people are here; there’s a lot. It was so cool to have all these American flags waving out there and that was definitely really sweet.”

    — Matt Voisin contributed reporting

    ***

    Women’s results | International women’s report

  • Randall’s Quebec Sprint Victory ‘One of the Coolest Things I’ve Ever Done’

    Randall’s Quebec Sprint Victory ‘One of the Coolest Things I’ve Ever Done’

    Kikkan Randall rushes past screaming fans ahead of Sweden’s Ida Ingemarsdotter (6) and Norway’s Maiken Caspersen Falla (not shown). Randall went on to win the Quebec World Cup 1.6 k freestyle sprint final on Saturday in Quebec City. It was her sixth individual World Cup gold and seventh including Friday’s team sprint.

    QUEBEC CITY – When you’re as talented as Kikkan Randall, there are a lot of great moments to put in the memory bank. The soon-to-be 30-year-old’s silver medal from 2009 World Championships stands out, but so do the five World Cup wins she had before Saturday’s 1.6-kilometer World Cup freestyle sprint.

    The sixth one in Quebec City turned out to be a real keeper. After the U.S. Ski Team veteran beat Norway’s Maiken Caspersen Falla and Sweden’s Ida Ingemarsdotter to the line of the women’s final, it wasn’t so much the race itself but what happened after that she’d never forget.

    Thousands of fans lined the 800-meter course, several of which stood near the finish holding American and Canadian flags across the barriers in front of them. Randall was certainly focused on keeping Falla and Ingemarsdotter at bay just behind her throughout the final, but it wasn’t to say she didn’t see all that outside stuff.

    Randall: two wins in two days.

    She did.

    Upon entering what was considered the stadium (actually a historic street called Grand Allée) for the last time, Randall picked up the pace in the final stretch, fulfilling the crowd’s excitement. She wasn’t Canadian, but this might as well have been a home race for the Anchorage native. Screams filled the air.

    Randall continued to push toward the line as Falla and Ingemarsdotter struggled to remain close. She finished first in 3:42.25 and gave three little fist pumps as Falla came through 1.1 seconds later, followed by Ingemarsdotter in third (+1.4 seconds back).

    “I knew Kikkan would be really fast in the last lap like she was yesterday,” Falla said, referring to Randall’s team sprint win – a first for the Americans – with teammate Jessie Diggins. “When she was passing me I was just trying to hold on, but she was really good today. I think I did my best but she was better today.”

    From the start, Falla vied for position with Randall and took the lead by the first uphill corner. Much like Randall’s semifinal (which she won as well as her quarterfinal), she sat tight in second – but not for long. By the start of the second lap, Randall accelerated up the outside and jetted to the front.

    When it comes to sprint tactics, Randall said she prefers to lead in order to set the pace and pick the best lines. But she’s trying to get used to following, too.

    She made her move on the last lap based on good feelings in her legs and decided, “Why not?”

    “The strategy worked well yesterday, being in the lead for the first two laps, so when I saw that opportunity, I took it,” she said.

    Meanwhile, the rest of the field, including Falla, Ingemarsdotter up front, tried to hang on.

    “When I went out of the second lap I felt something behind me was happening [and] it was Kikkan,” Ingemarsdotter said. “It was us three, but then I switched position and just worked the whole way.”

    In her first individual World Cup sprint of the season, Ingemarsdotter said she was satisfied. “This is a good start to the sprint season for me,” she said.

    Ida Ingemarsdotter (SWE) congratulates the winner Kikkan Randall.

    Just off the podium, Norway’s Ingvild Flugstad Oestbergtook placed fourth (+2.2). Mona-Lisa Malvalehto of Finland was 2.9 seconds behind in fifth, and Russian Natalia Korosteleva took sixth (+3.2).

    As the others caught their breaths, Randall looked over to the sideline to see her U.S. teammate Holly Brooks holding a large American stick flag out for her. Randall suddenly realized she got to lead the victory “lap” back down final stretch and took it from her.

    “It was one of the coolest things I think I’ve ever done, definitely one of the sporting moments that’s going to stand out for me,” Randall said after notching her sixth individual World Cup gold and second victory in as many days (she and Jessie Diggins became the first Americans to win a World Cup team sprint on Friday). In total, she’s won seven World Cup titles, all in skate sprints.

    “I had heard that would maybe get to ski up and down the finish stretch if you made the top three,” she said. “I was so focused on the race that I kind of forgot about that until Holly handed me the flag and was like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s right, we get to do this.’ It was totally fun.”

    It was the first time she got to celebrate a win that way, and doing so in front of so many animated fans made it a more unique experience.

    Randall: “To be able to do that victory lap afterwards was something I will definitely remember for the rest of my life.”

    “I’ve never seen so much enthusiasm come together all at once,” she said. “I was getting comments from all the other European athletes going, ‘Wow, you guys really get fired up. In Sweden it’s a polite clap’… I’m proud that our fans came and put on a good show as well. We’re in Canada and yet the U.S. presence was so strong.”

    That kind of outwardly motivation makes each win or personal best exciting for her, even if it wasn’t surprising. She put Saturday’s right up there with World Championships in Liberec, Czech Republic.

    “All those experiences have their special places,” she said. “At World Championships that was kind of like a new level and that was incredible, but [this] was right up there. … It’s taken so much to get here and to be able to do it here at home, which is hopefully inspiring the next generation, it’s so cool. It just keeps me coming back for more.”

    In the qualifier, Randall placed third, 6.3 seconds behind wMalvalehto, who was first in 3:35.89. (Russia’s Svetlana Nikolaeva ranked second, but didn’t advance to the finals and ended up 11th.) For Randall, that qualifier alone was a good sign of things to come, U.S. head coach Chris Grover said.

    “If you ever see her in bib 10 or less, you know she’s probably going to go all the way to the podium,” he said. “To ski with such authority and control in each heat, you knew that she wasn’t on the edge of her fitness … and you knew she’d be able to dig deep when the time came in the final.”

    Her consistency has worn the novelty pretty thin, but her biggest fans haven’t lost their excitement.

    “I’ve definitely seen her win a few World Cups now … but it still feels incredibly good to have that kind of success,” Grover said.

    “We’re super-excited. … All the hard work and dedication paid off,” Randall’s mom, Deborah, said. “Now we can really super-party.”

    — Topher Sabot contributed reporting

    ***

  • Bottomley Tries Training in Canmore, Seeking Top 30 in Québec

    Bottomley Tries Training in Canmore, Seeking Top 30 in Québec

    Australian Esther Bottomley (second from left) at the Canmore NorAm freestyle sprint on Dec. 2 in Canmore, Alberta. Bottomley qualified for the heats in 12th and went on to place ninth. (Courtesy photo)

    The idea struck Esther Bottomley in early October. If she wanted to break into the top 30 on the World Cup this season, why not start practicing at one of the venues she’ll compete at?

    The 29-year-old Australian National Ski Team member called up Perianne Jones, who was training with the Canadian national team in Park City, Utah. Jones spoke to her friend Amanda Ammar, who races for the Canmore Nordic Ski Club in Alberta and had an extra room back home. A couple weeks later, Bottomley was on snow training in Canmore, living at altitude and soaking up her surroundings.

    A month into her visit, Bottomley, who’s been on the Australian national team for the better part of a decade, talked to FasterSkier about what she’s been up to in Canmore and why she decided to train there in the first place. One of two women on her team and the only one competing in Canada this season, Bottomley opted to skip the early World Cup races in Europe to prepare for the Québec and Canmore sprints Dec. 8 and 15, respectively.

    Esther Bottomley (AUS) in the Canmore NorAm 10 k classic on Dec. 2, where she finished 17th. (Courtesy photo)

    FasterSkier: Why Canmore?

    Esther Bottomley: They’ve got the World Cups over in Canada so that’s sort of why I was going to come here, but mostly it was to try and get a big group of girls that are at a really high level and be able to train with them. So far I’ve trained with three different training groups [the Canadian NST, Alberta World Cup Academy and Rocky Mountain Racers], and it’s been great, like, really good skiers and very motivated.

    FS: How have you made it work with your training plan?

    EB: I have my own plan and when I can get information from other teams in advance it’s really good, which they’ve sometimes been able to do. My coach can accommodate some of their intensity sessions so I’ve been trying to do as many sessions as I can with other people but also stick to some of my own things as well.

    FS: How much time had you previously spent in Canada?

    EB: I’ve been for the World Cups before and a wedding [teammate Chris Darlington married former Canadian skier Brooke Gosling last winter], but I’ve never spent more than like a week here. It’s the first time I’ve been able to do a bit more exploring, which has been fun.

    (Note: Bottomley achieved her career-best World Cup result of 35th in a 2005 freestyle sprint in Vernon, British Columbia.)

    FS: What are your goals for this season?

    EB: This year, I guess the goal is to try to get into the top 30 in the sprints, focus on the sprints, and try and sort of cut back travel. I’d like to try and stay in one spot for a while, which has been really good here. I can train here the whole time then go to Quebec and back again. I’ll be in Europe for the rest of the season until March.

    FS: Why the change in travel?

    EB: I’d kind of like to be able to, if I can, sit in one spot for a little while and just cut back the amount of hours. I didn’t go to the early World Cups in Europe just so I could cut down the jet-lag time and the hours because we already have to do that big flight from Australia to get anywhere.

    FS: How has your training been?

    EB: Pretty good. … We did a sprint simulation on the World Cup track so that’s fantastic. You get to come here and they’ve opened up the sprint course like the last weekend so we can now get on it and see what we have to do to ski faster on it. I think that’s the really big advantage to be able to come somewhere and just be able to ski the course and know the course before you race it.

    FS: What’s the sprint course in Canmore like?

    EB: Canmore is a bit of a hill climb. It’ll be a hundred percent different I think than Québec, which is meant to be a long flat course to here, which is really just a big climb in the middle and flat into it and flat out of it and that’s it. It’s a tough course.

    FS: What do you know about the Québec course?

    EB: It’ll be interesting. I think it’s quite a long course for the women so it’ll be interesting to see how that goes. The NorAms will give us an idea of how things are going and then right straight into it.

    (In a follow-up after Bottomley placed ninth in the Canmore NorAm freestyle sprint and 17th in the 10 k classic Dec. 1-2):

    FS: How did the Canmore NorAm go?

    EB: Last weekend was good fun but didn’t quite go as well as I was hoping for the races. Looking forward to going to Québec and racing on Saturday to see if I can ski a bit faster there.

    FS: What kind of sprint course do you prefer?

    EB: I kind of like in between [hilly and flat], sort of just an undulating where you can climb hard and recover a bit in between, but we’ll see. I’ve been training I think well during [the offseason]. It’s always hard to know at the start of the season. Hopefully I’m a little bit fitter and hills are all right.

  • With Snow in the Streets, Québec City Prepares for Unprecedented World Cup

    With Snow in the Streets, Québec City Prepares for Unprecedented World Cup

    A groomer working in front of the Parliament Building in Québec City earlier this week. (FIS Cross Country photo: facebook.com/fiscrosscountry)

    Québec’s seen pretty much everything when it comes to sporting events, from Mountain Bike World Championships to Red Bull Crashed Ice and a transoceanic sailing race known as the Transat Québec Saint-Malo. Gestev, an event-production company based in Québec City, hosted them all, but cross-country skiing city sprints? That was a new one.

    So was the idea of spreading 10,000 cubic meters (353,000 cubic feet) of snow over some of the provincial capital’s busiest streets. Last weekend, that number was up to 12,000 cubic meters (nearly 424,000 cubic feet).

    In a phone interview on his way back from a Crashed Ice event in Niagara Falls on Sunday, Gestev president Patrice Drouin was shifting gears from the full-contact hockey/downhill skating/boardercross competition, to what was waiting for him in Québec City.

    On Saturday, sixty employees and dozens more volunteers started laying down the 850-meter sprint course with extra snow to work with as a result of cold temperatures (racers will do two loops for 1.7 k). Two snow guns on the nearby Plains of Abraham and two more on Parliament hill had been churning out the white stuff since Nov. 6.

    A snowmaking gun blows snow onto the Plains of Abraham behind the Parliament Building in downtown Quebec City. (Sprint Québec photo)

    Organizers produced and stockpiled more (5,000 cubic meters) just in case at the Mont Sainte-Anne nordic area 45 minutes northeast of the city. As of Sunday, Drouin said they didn’t need it with more than 80 percent of the course sufficiently covered. With extra snow to work with, they made Parliament hill a little steeper.

    “We could’ve done the track with less than that, 6,000 to 7,000 meters,” Drouin said. “But because the weather was good, we could produce snow in a matter of hours.”

    They took that window and ran with it, and despite light rain falling on Sunday and above-freezing temperatures expected throughout the week, Drouin said they weren’t concerned.

    “That doesn’t affect the snow at all,” he said. “The mechanical snow that we produce is so hard and so dense … [the rain] makes the snow more compact.

    “I am very impressed to see the quality of the track,” he added. “I’ve been to Düsseldorf [Germany] and our snow compared to Düsseldorf is much better. It’s exactly I think what you want to get as far as snow quality.”

    With three loaders transporting 90 truckloads onto the course and two snowcats grooming around the clock, Drouin said all but Grande Allée had been covered by Sunday. That was planned for late Tuesday night (for a webcam update, click here). From there on out, the main road in front of the Parliament Building would be closed, essentially shutting down the city centre adjacent to the Old City for the rest of the week.

    Meanwhile, the province’s legislature would still be in session. Sprint Québec organizers agreed to adhere to noise restrictions on Friday morning during National Assembly meetings, but as of noon, all systems were on (the team freestyle sprints start at 2 p.m.).

    “It’s a long process but when we presented the project to the city, they were really keen on doing it,” Drouin said. “When we had the first meeting with the city we got full support.”

    Gestev’s reputation in its home city helped, he said. In past events, they’ve been respectful of permits, tried not to take up much space or make too much noise. But with heavy machinery and more than 50,000 spectators expected for the two-day International Ski Federation (FIS) Cross-Country World Cup on Friday and Saturday, this was going to be entirely unprecedented.

    Never before has a World Cup city sprint been held in North America, and this marks the first nordic World Cup in the eastern part of the continent.

    Drouin said the project, estimated at $2.5-million dollars, has been a challenge, but that’s what makes it exciting.

    “Cross-country skiing at such a level with the best in the world at the sprint format, that will be amazing right downtown so we sold it that way,” he said. “It will be the first time that the [Québec] population will see cross country in that way, big, and the exchange and the action that sprints provide.”

    Cross-country skiing is already popular in Québec, and the city has been making an effort to promote the lifestyle sport with trail-building projects and other initiatives. So when Drouin pitched the idea, the city jumped on board.

    “It’s a healthy sport, attracts a lot of people in the Québec area and plus we have the Alex Harvey factor,” he said of Québec’s own national team member. “We have this young athlete that has done very well, but has a nice personality as well.”

    His father, Pierre, is the honorary president of the event. Drouin said the location, with a chance to showcase historic Québec, and the challenge of hosting cross-country ski races in December made it appealing.

    “We can officially say today that we will succeed in delivering the event,” Drouin said. “That was a challenge people were so worried [about] making snow. … That will make a difference and people will come.”

    As of Tuesday, 136 athletes from 17 different nations were registered for the freestyle sprints. According to a press release, more 300 volunteers, 200 journalists and 160 paid workers are expected for the event.

    ***

    Related: Quebec Ready for First World Cup; Harvey Shows Support