Weather and other challenges are requiring us to be adaptable. Be alert and read carefully!

Schedule Updates

Super G is Saturday at 1 pm. Inspection is before that. Watch for a special bulletin with Super G rules. Among other things, no hard-eared helmet or no inspection equals no race.
The next GDHL race is Sunday, 12 February at 1 pm - long SL starting in the Millennium hut and running down Venture. After that, GS on Big John, Sunday 19 February at 1 pm.
Interclub is at Alpine, also on Saturday afternoon, so there will be a lot of scrambling from one race to the next.
Fast & Female and Adult Tech will have gate training on Buttonhole at 9:30 on each of Saturday and Sunday.
The main Adult Gates sessions will be "big GS" on Millennium Friday and Big John Saturday morning, and "regular GS" on Comet on Sunday.

Results

Sunday's GS saw another fine display from the Coyotes, this time clearing a substantial snowfall on our Big John course, while managing a concurrent race on Comet. Alec Libert comfortably won both runs to record his third straight GDHL win, followed by Phil Ruffolo, Scott McLorie, Greg Cavers and Doug Jarvis. Craig Shibley just missed catching Trent Winstone to finish 8th in his first race back from injury, while Brook Dyson, Richard Usher-Jones, Will Andrew, Bryce Conacher and Glenn Blaylock were among the ranking beaters in the top 20. Sarah Latimer was the first woman in 30th overall, followed by Leslie Sims (38th) and Alison Banfield (40th). Other big improvements on ranking were posted by Jamie Coulter, Paul Woodhouse, Josh Kester, Roger Chiu, Vern Gomes and Murray Sarafinchin.

All this followed Saturday's trip by the Interclub team to take on their closest rivals, Georgian Peaks, at the Peaks. Your representatives prevailed by 26 points, the largest margin of the season. Craigleith's women dominated, with Mary Riopelle winning her age group by almost six seconds, new recruit Patti East (adopted from Osler) winning by three and Kate Veer winning by over four. While the margins weren't as large, the men also did well, led by the 1, 2, 3, 5, 7 finishes by Jeff Sutherland, Trent Winstone, Craig Shibley, Jeff Craig and Ian Latimer in the largest age group of the day, which accounted for 132 of the team's 441 points. Phil Ruffolo, Taylor Simms-Brown and Scott McLorie also won their age groups, while Al LaChance, Glenn Blaylock, Rob Burnes, Greg Cavers, Keith Farnand and Alec Libert all scored at least 23 points.

Faces in the Crowd

Pictured above are Kate (Grieve) Veer and Rya (Kirkwood) Prozes, who are building on the recent '80's theme by picking up their rivalry from that era, when Kate was on the Ontario ski team and Rya represented BC and Canada in the 1988 World Junior Championships. Rya joined the Club this year after spending 15 of the intervening years without owning skis, and is now learning about the joys of shaped skis and other new technology.

Meanwhile, regular readers will have noted the frequent references to Sarah Latimer in the results reports. Sarah apparently had a low profile junior racing career but was one of the first of her age group to join GDHL. She's now in her fifth GDHL season and during that time has diligently, or perhaps dutifully, attended gate training with her father. As a result, she has won a Greg Lee award as one of the most improved female skiers in GDHL two seasons in a row, become a dependable Interclub contributor and now leads the season's standings for GDHL women. Notably, this past weekend Sarah also beat her father, who trailed by a few hundies on each run. This coming weekend, the family will be joined by younger sister Erin, who is expected to forerun our Super G after returning from the World Para-Alpine Championships.

Enough for now. Be sure to read the special Super G rules coming soon and get ready for the second half of our all too brief race season!

James Mathers