What a special occasion we all enjoyed last weekend! Having the majority of the women’s Canadian Alpine Ski Team racing down Big John in the afternoon, and Little John in the evening was something we can all burn into our memory banks and chat about at Après skis for years to come. For those who braved the cold, watching the dual slalom, there wasn’t much time for recovery before our OWN GDHL dual slalom down the exact same hill, started late Sunday afternoon, and ended even later.
The action won’t stop for us though, as we enter the Family Day Long Weekend with another marquee race on the docket, the “Extra Long Slalom”. This will be our last race before club championships on March 7th. Which, is also when we have our GDHL Banquet… have you bought your tickets?
There is lots in this newsletter. Everything above is covered in detail, as well as a GDHL Fantasy recap and a Standings update.
Race winner, Erin Mielzynski cresting the pitch on Saturday afternoon
Weekend Schedule:
This weekend’s Slalom Race is on Saturday, February 15th. Not on Sunday, which was previously reported. We appreciate your patience with our schedule, as we know it has been fluid this season
NORAMs
Hosting the NORAMs is always special! The last time we hosted the women’s NORAM circuit at Craigleith was 2008, and before that 2005, so it has been a while. The Club was bursting with activity, and excitement throughout the day and evening despite the -16 temperature. Many of the women’s CAST have since taken to social media to share their thanks to Georgian Peaks, Osler Bluff, and Craigleith for hosting the 5-day race carnival. The Craigleith event was structured as a FIS Slalom, one-run qualifier down Big John. Then a separate NORAM sanctioned Dual Slalom on Little John under the lights in the evening. Erin Mielzynski won the qualifier race, and Canadians Stef Fleckenstein (4th), Amelia Smart (7th), and Roni Remme (10th) finished top ten.
A view of the Dual Slalom course on Little John, with the crowd gathered waiting for the race to begin
All the CAST women made the top 32 cut to move onto into the Dual Slalom evening event. As the temperature plummeted, the dual slalom took off, with an incredible jump mid way down the pitch and the ladies laying down blistering times. By the time the racing finished just before 8 pm, Roni Remme of Alpine Ski Club had won it all! Stef Fleckenstein finished third in a dominant performance of determination. We all hope to bring the NORAM circuit and similar events like this back to our Club more often.
667 Likes, 4 Comments - Roni Remme (@roniremme) on Instagram: "Thanks for the wicked week of racing C-Wood! Everything was perfect, from the hill prep to the..."
DUAL SLALOM
The fun of the weekend did not end after the lights of Little John turned off! Sunday afternoon we ran our first (fact checkers please confirm) ever sanctioned and scored, GDHL dual slalom! With a different format from last year’s exhibition Dual Slalom, this event enabled all racers to take part. The results were determined by combining the first and second run times of each racer. If a racer failed to finish either run, they were credited with a half-second penalty, and the qualified run was just doubled. This made for interesting results!
As we started the race, the Coyotes quickly realized we had to reset our race format, and within 15 minutes had a whole new system set up in the timing hut. Following the race, the Timers told us that our race was more difficult to run than the NORAMs, which is a pretty impressive accolade!
The Sunday crowds looked smaller, but they were just as supportive as those on Saturday!
After a few other course delays, and many gate panels going missing, we ran each racer twice. Ben Williams won the overall race with a time of 34.32. Trevor Whitten (34.48) and Mike Welton (35.05) finished 2nd and 3rd respectively. On the ladies side, Katie Farrow took home her third victory, with an overall time of 37.00. Congratulations to Bridgette Mingay (38.56) and Meghan Barber (38.97) who both made their inaugural appearance on the podium coming 2nd and 3rd!
Following the race, there was an effort to build an eight-racer bracket for a Fun Race, however with afternoon dwindling away, the bracket was called off and two fun runs through the course were scored for fantasy points. Ben Williams won the Fun Race and took home an additional 20 points on the day, with Mike Welton and Joel Charron taking home 10 and 5 points each for placing 2nd and 3rd in the Fun Race. Congratulations to Jeff Sutherland, who after breaking the start gate, finished both his runs, and placed 4th.
GDHL DINNER:
As always, our end of year banquet will be a blast! Get your tickets for the event ASAP! Details are:
Date: March 7th @ 7:00 p.m.
Cost: $35+hst /per person - $25+hst/ per intermediate member
Coaches & Coyotes are welcome....
Ticket purchase deadline: February 29th
Included in the ticket price is ample wine, (though you may choose to bring your own and pay $10 corkage), delicious food, free drinks from our Craft Alcohol sponsors, and a beautiful Craigleith Masters Racing technical T Shirt.
This is always the party of the year for us. We are so excited to have you there!
Standings and Fantasy:
The GDHL League results are slowly coming together and showing which teams are in the running for money this year! Manitou, Big John and Landslide and on the top, but Cornice and National aren’t out of the picture yet.
We have had some interruptions with our database this year, which we are working to fix, however in the meantime our GDHL team will be double checking results and doing long hand multiplication to ensure all results are correct and final.
Fantasy Results are available here:
Check out your team and make sure you take a moment to thank those racers you’ve selected who are getting you points! Each race counts in Fantasy, so it’s important to stay tuned until all the race results are submitted and calculations final!
The top three entrants are:
Paul Peterson #2 – 817 Points
Anthony Ruffalo – 780 Points
Brayden Irwin – 778 Points
Top three athletes are:
Paul Peterson – 236 Points
Derek Brodie – 200 Points
Vern Gomes – 171 Points
See you on the hill!
-Doug Jarvis