Hudson McCubbin in the 10km skate race on Saturday. Submitted photo.
The North Bay Nordic Junior Ski racing team capped off their season with a gruelling week of high performance racing at the Cross Country Ski National Championships in Thunder Bay.
The JRT’s four skiers range in age from 15-17 competed in 4 races over 8 days including 2 freestyle distance races, a classic sprint and a classic distance race.
This was the first National competition for newest teammate Olivia Wolfram who joined the team as a second year juvenile girl.
Olivia was thrilled to compete amongst the country's best skiers including national champion and World Cup medallist Perianne Jones.
Teammate Hannah Story-Korman is also a new team member and second year juvenile girl. Hannah represented the team on the podium at three of the four Ontario Cup races but this year the top juvenile female spots at Nationals were dominated by racers from western Canada.
In his last year on the junior race team, second year junior boy Mikell Blain-Rogers faced strong competition in a field that included boys representing club, provincial and junior national teams. Mikell plans to continue ski racing at the varsity level.
Juvenile boy Hudson McCubbin saved his best performances of the season for Nationals. Hudson narrowly missed the podium several times at Ontario cup races but shone at Nationals where he capped off the week with a 6th place overall and 3rd in Ontario on the last day of racing. Hudson started the week off strong with a 12th place finish in the week's first distance race, just 47 seconds off a bronze medal spot. Hudson continued to perform well qualifying for quarterfinals in the classic sprints.
The team is taking a well-deserved rest before resuming their training in May. The team is coached by Sera Tempio and Dave Nighbor.
