Nighbor Claims Nordic Bronze

Mont-Saint-Anne, Que. - North Bay's Dave Nighbor, who has won numerous nationalmedals as a junior in nordic skiing, climbed onto the metal podium in his first year of senior competition. Nighbor, a 20 year old rookie on the national senior team, claimed a bronze medal in the men's 15-kilometre free technique event Sunday with a time of 34:33.0. The gold was captured by 26 year old Chris Jeffries, of Chelsea, Que who won the race in 33 minutes 23.7 seconds and claimed his fourth distance title of the week.

Sunday's event, loaded with the countries top skiers not at the World Cup, marked the completion of five races, which are being used to determine Canada's team at February's World Championships in Oberstdorf, Germany. Cross Country Canada is expected to name the team early this week.

On Saturday, Nighbor placed 8th in a very tight group and was only 16 seconds out of 1st place in the 15 km classic event. "With two kilometers to go, I was more than 30 seconds behind the leading train", Nighbor claimed.

"I knew that to have a chance to qualify (to ski in Europe this winter), I had to dig deep and finish with the group ahead of me."

And that he did. In the final stage of the race, Nighbor gained over 15 seconds to finish amongst a tight pack of 4 skiers.

Other North Bay skiers to join Nighbor at the event were Jeff Seguin who trains at the National Training Development Centre in Thunder Bay, Linnea Rudachyk and Tavis Apramian with Carleton University, and Ava Rudachyk and Jesse Winter of the North Bay Nordic Junior Racing Team.

Seguin completed Saturday's event in 38th place with a time of 42:31. On Sunday, Seguin placed 41st with a time of 37:34. Apramian placed 66th on Sunday with a time of 39:37 and 67th on Saturday with a time of 46:17.

Jesse Winter, a second year Junior Boy, and Ava Rudachyk, a second year Junior Girl, both raced up in the Open Men's and Open Women's events. Both skiers, who have three years remaining in the junior category, put in awesome performances skiing against their junior and senior counterparts and showed they have potential to ski on the national circuit.

Winter placed 51st overall (12th Junior) on Saturday with a time of 38:11 and 59th overall (13th junior) on Saturday with a time of 44:39. On Sunday, Ava Rudachyk placed 41st overall (17th junior) with a time of 30:16. On Saturday, Rudachyk placed 45th overall (17th junior) in the 10 km classic event in 37:00. Her sister Linnea placed 39th on Saturday with a time of 38:43and 43rd on Sunday in 30:39.

For complete results see http://www.zone4.ca/