Nordic Skiers head to Canadian Championships and Ontario Winter Games

Skiers (left to right) Greg Kilroy, Jake Porter, Zale Apramian, Kaytlyn Faucon, and Jon Winter. Photo courtesy Doug Winter.

North Bay Nordic Skiers Greg Kilroy, Jon Winter and Jake Porter have been selected to the Ontario Junior Development Team and will represent Ontario at the Canadian Championships in Thunder Bay starting this weekend and continuing through to March 12th. The three skiers were among 12 juvenile boys named to the 44-member team from Ontario.

Selection of Kilroy, Winter and Porter to the Ontario Junior Development Team is based on race performance points earned in the eight race Ontario Cup series held across Ontario in the past two months. Kilroy achieved this recognition in his first year racing competitively at the Ontario Cup level. Joining the team in Thunder Bay will be Kaytlyn Faucon, a first year junior girl who narrowly missed repeating her selection to the Ontario team last year. These four promising young skiers will also be joined in Thunder Bay by Jesse Winter, currently training at the National Team Development Centre, and by senior National Team member Dave Nighbor. Races at the Canadian Championships mirror the format of the recent exciting results from the Turin Olympics with a mix of relays, sprints and distance races in both classic and skate technique.

The team is buoyed by recent excellent results at OFSAA where Porter was second, with Winter and Faucon barely off the podium in 4th, and Kilroy a strong 7th.

While these four skiers are racing in Thunder Bay, first year junior boy Zale Apramian along with the midget-aged North Bay Development Team members Adam Birosh, Liam Patterson and Claude Hamel will be racing for North Bay Nordic at the Ontario Winter games being held in Collingwood March 9th to 11th.

Submitted to BayToday.ca