Saturday's pursuit race saw Nathan Smith take his second gold medal of the week at biathlon national championships. With a solid 18/20 shooting, Nathan easily won the Senior Men's category. In the Senior boys, Marius Ruth was once again on fire, finishing in second place overall, while Matt Vrielink had another excellent race, finishing with the bronze medal. Kyle Pollock finished 4th only 8 seconds out of a medal! Marni Stokoe had her best race of the week in the Senior Girls category with a 4th place finish. Alberta finished 4th through 9th in this very competitive category.

Foothills Biathlon will be hosting a biathlon demo day in Canmore on March 27th. This is an opportunity for anyone and everyone age 7 and older to come out and try this exciting and challenging winter sport. Participants in this free demo will receive top level instruction from our coaches as well as some of our senior athletes. All rifles and ammunition will be provided as well as some refreshments.

In our second day of racing at National Biathlon Championships, Foothills Nordic really showed what they were capable of with 8 medals!! Danielle Vrielink finished 3rd in Senior Girls, shooting an impressive 17/20, while Nathan Smith won the Senior Men's category, beating out our 4 top Olympians! Our club swept the Senior Boys category with Will Poffenroth taking the Gold (18/20), Marius Ruth the Silver, and Brant Wunderlich the Bronze. Kyle Pollock finished 5th while Matt Vrielink finished in 7th spot in this category. The Masters Men was swept by Alberta, with Kevin Milliken taking the gold,...

First, thanks to all cookie bakers who provided cookies for the Cookie Race. At the beginning of the week it looked as though we wouldn't have many cookies at all, but then they started to pile up at Tim and Tina's house. Tim thought it was pure magic the way he'd go to bed at night and in morning find bags and bags of cookies at his front door! The race was a great success, in no small part because of all the fabulous home baking. I talked to one 24 k racer who told me "undoubtedly" gained weight during the race. He was very happy! Just one small glitch to mention: There wasn't time to complete...

Foothills got off to a great start today, with Marius Ruth finishing 2nd in the Sr. Boys, while Matt Vrielink earned a 3rd spot in the same category. As Marius is not a Canadian citizen, Matt moves up to the silver medal position. Will Poffenroth had a great ski race finishing 4th overall. Danielle Vrielink, racing up a category in her first Nationals finished second with a strong 7/10 shooting performance. Many athletes had a rough time on the shooting range today, however we expect much improvement in tomorrows Individual races.

A huge thank-you to the many volunteers at the Kananaskis Ski Marathon another huge success. This year was an extra challenge as some key people were away at the Vancouver Games but some new people stepped up to the plate and we have such a depth of seasoned volunteers that the event went off very well. The competition is of course a great deal of fun but it was also fun for me to visit with old friends and new and to have a chance to chat about our common interest of skiing, racing, and sharing by providing these opportunities to others which is of course the reason we put on the race. I...

Foothills Para-Nordic athletes Mark Arendz, Melanie Ross and newcomer John Cornish competed in the Haywood Canadian Para-Nordic Nationals this past weekend. It was a great weekend of racing and a successful learn-to-ski clinic with some new para-nordic athletes giving cross-country skiing a try. Saturday was capped off with a meet and greet with both Canadian and Russian National team members. Watch for the naming of our Canadian Paralympic team this week! Race results can be found on Zone4. This competition is normally held in conjunction with the able-bodied Nationals, but there is a conflict...

Learn to Cross-Country Ski with Para-Nordic athletes and coaches on February 27th at the Canmore Nordic Centre. The free clinic will occur in conjunction with the Haywood Para-Nordic Ski Nationals - featuring local, national and international racers. The competition races begin at 9:00am and the ski clinic will begin at 1:00pm. We will end the day with a meet and greet with competing athletes - and our national Para-Nordic ski team!

This past weekend, Foothills sent 30 biathletes up to Hinton to compete in Alberta and Western Championships. We finished the weekend with 18 Western Championship medals, and 26 Alberta Championship medals!!!
Some highlights of the weekend were: Emily Krause and Adam Runnals competed in their first biathlon race! Darya Sepandj won the juvenile girls category, but the top 4 girls were within 40 seconds and Bryn Robertson missed 3rd place by less than 2 seconds! Our senior boys swept the podium in both Westerns and Alberta Champs on BOTH DAYS!!! Congratulations Brant, Matt, and Kyle!

Foothills Nordic is very excited to announce that both Megan Bankes and Eric Hall were recipients of this year's Gernot Kostera award. This award, named after the late Gernot Kostera, is in recognition of an up and coming athlete who shows commitment to the sport as well as giving back to his/her community. It is a $1000 cash award which is meant to help the athlete either purchase their own rifle, or to augment their ski equipment. This is a very prestigious award, so to have two athletes in the same club win it in the same year is truly outstanding! Congratulations to Megan and Eric!