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Tyler Allison posts B.C. Championships' best lap

Local rider tops podium, leading team to Bantam trophy
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"This is one I really wanted to win because it’s in my home town." Tyler Allison

The fastest rider at the B.C. High School Mountain Bike Championships Saturday (May 27) was not a senior but a bantam – he’s also the reigning B.C. Under 15 champion and happens to live a stone’s throw from the trail, but he’s a bantam, just turned 14, Grade 8 student nevertheless.

Tyler Allison’s group did just one lap of the six kilometres-plus course, which included a mix of Lost Lake roads, doubletrack and singletrack trails. Most riders and coaches were in agreement that the course was the most technical yet, especially after a little rain.

Allison knew his rivals from the B.C. Cup circuit (also his friends) would be gunning for him from start to finish and turned on the gas early.

"This is one I really wanted to win because it’s in my home town," he said. "I had a really good race. I had everybody behind me by about 10 minutes into the race and ended winning by three and a half minutes with a really fast time. It was a good course, with lots of places to pick up speed."

Although the singletrack was a little wet in sections Allison said his only close calls of the day happened on the road to the finish line when he skidded out on a couple of gravel corners. In his defence he was moving pretty quickly on his way to posting a final time of 25 minutes, 53.30 seconds – the fastest lap of the day for any racer.

Although there’s a little pressure being the guy to beat at most races, Allison says he enjoys the competition. "It just makes me want to train harder so I can stay ahead," he said.

One of the riders who was trying to chase Allison out of the start blew up on the climb and ended up having to walk his bike until he could catch his breath.

Allison’s next big race is the 67 km Test of Metal, which he’s hoping to finish in about three hours and 10 minutes – a realistic goal if it doesn’t rain all day like last year. He also plans to race the B.C. Cup series, as well as the Canada Cup at Sun Peaks.

In addition to cross-country Allison also races downhill and plans to enter most of the events in the Crankworx festival this July. That includes a new cross-country event and a Super-D uphill/downhill event.

Sebastien Sleep of Elphinstone Secondary finished about two and a half minutes back of Allison in second place, while Scott Mulder of Argyle Secondary took the bronze medal.

Other Whistler riders in the race included Jesse Melamed, who finished sixth out of 62 riders, and Jake Balzarini who was 28 th . Devan McClelland was 17 th overall but second out of 22 starters in the heavy bike division. Patrick Taillefer was 24 th overall, and sixth in heavy bike, while Connor Warnock was 49 th and 15 th respectively.

Whistler also got a closer look at two of the province’s top up and coming racers.

In the junior girls race Katherine Short of Chatelech Secondary on the Sunshine Coast finished first by well over five minutes, beating all senior and junior girls to the finish line.

"It was really fun, I loved the technical parts," she said. "I like the more technical trails because that’s kind of my forte."

Short didn’t know where her main competitors were during the race, but kept pedaling to be on the safe side. "I wasn’t pacing any of the guys in particular, I find it just stresses me out to ride someone else’s race. I just passed where I could and tried to go fast enough so that other people weren’t passing me."

She was one of many riders who crossed the finish line bleeding that day, losing control on the first bridge during the descent. "I just took a corner too sharp and went down. It was nothing, I didn’t even know I was bleeding until I felt my sock getting wet."

Short plans to race all summer, B.C. Cup and Canada Cup, as well as a few road races in between.

Toria Whitney was the top female rider from Whistler, even after spending her morning winning her division in the Kids of Steel triathlon. She arrived at the high school championships with minutes to spare; enough time to eat a Power Bar.

Although she finished ninth overall out of 27 riders, fourth among juniors, she knows she could have done a lot better without trying to squeeze in a second event.

"I don’t know how I did it to tell you the truth, I was just doing it," she said. "I don’t think I’ll do that again. The race starts on an uphill and I was just dying. About 10 minutes into it I started to feel better, but it was still hard. My biking wasn’t really that good, but I was having fun. I enjoyed both events, I just wish they were on different days."

Whitney’s next event is the Squamish Triathlon, although she won’t get much time to train in the next while because of her ski race training. She spent the two weeks before the triathlon and B.C. Championships on the mountain, taking advantage of the late season conditions.

"I haven’t ridden my mountain bike in about two weeks."

Whitney was selected to join Team Whistler this year, a local group of cyclists with top riders in every age group. The team wanted to develop some of the younger riders, and chose Whitney because of her attitude and her abilities on a road bike – she beat all of the other racers, boys and girls, in the Kids of Steel road stage.

Annika Anderson, an exchange student from Sweden, finished sixth overall in the senior category, and second in the heavy bike group. Anderson is new to mountain biking this year, and has already made huge strides.

Coach Sean Bickerton, who coached the Whistler Secondary team with Eric Crowe, predicted she would be on the podium in the heavy bike sub category.

Deborah Bayliss from Whistler Secondary was eighth among seniors in the regular cross-country category.

In the senior boys race, Jeff Clarkson of Spectrum Community School had a three-minute gap on the competition after the first lap, and added a minute over the next two laps to finish the 18 km course in 1:20:25. Kyle Kennedy of Collingwood Secondary and Robert Whishaw of West Vancouver Secondary were second and third.

"It was a really fun course," said Clarkson. "It was long and technical, what a mountain bike course is supposed to be like.

"The first lap was really fast, Kyle (Kennedy) was right behind me, and when we started the second lap I could see through the trees as I came around a corner that he had fallen off the pace a bit. After that I didn’t see him, but I still hammered pretty hard – you never know what’s going to happen, you can get a flat and suddenly you’re the one playing catch-up."

Clarkson trains with a professional road team, and is only starting to get into mountain biking. He still has one year in school, and plans to be back in the championships next year, but after that plans to focus full time on road riding.

"(The championships) are a good event, you really get to see where you are against the best in the province. It also gets a lot of people out which keeps the sport going."

Other Whistler and Pemberton podiums went to Devan McClelland (second in the bantam heavy bike category), Connor Halliwell (third in the junior heavy bike category), and Sydney VanLoon (first in the senior girls category).

Overall Whistler finished fourth out of 35 participating schools with 521 points. Pemberton was 15th out of 35 participating schools with 265 points. The overall winner once again was Don Ross Secondary in Brackendale, which also brought the largest team to the championships.

In the age categories, Whistler finished first in the bantam boys division with 243 total points.

Complete results will be available online at www.bcschoolsports.ca.

Results:

Bantam Boys (1 Lap)

1. Tyler Allison, Whistler – 25:53

2. Sebastian Sleep, Elphinstone – 28:26

3. Scott Mulder, Argyle – 28:49

6. Jesse Melamed, Whistler – 31:18

23. Boyd Dawson, Pemberton – 39:07

28. Jake Balzarini, Whistler – 40:56

35. Taylor Beattie, Pemberton – 41:50

Bantam Heavy Bike (1 Lap)

1. Dale Orchard, King’s Christian – 36:14

2. Devan McClelland, Whistler – 36:49

3. Kale VanBruggen, Pacific Christian – 37:01

5. Lindsay LeBlanc, Pemberton – 38:43

6. Patrick Taillefer, Whistler – 39:30

7. Daniel Marantz, Pemberton – 39:49

15. Connor Warnock, Whistler – 47:11

18. Nathaniel Protter, Pemberton – 48:52

19. Stan Wallace, Pemberton – 54:54

21. Brandon Cherry, Pemberton – 59:57

Bantam/Juvenile Girls Combined (1 Lap)

1. Lone Kjersten, Pacific Christian – 33:28

2. Ruby Woodruff, Seycove – 36:50

3. Alison MacKellar, Don Ross – 37:45

Juvenile Boys (2 Laps)

1. Zac Gartside, Don Ross – 56:54

2. Kevin Thorpe, Handsworth – 58:30

3. Hayden Drygas, Howe Sound – 1:00:59

Juvenile Boys Heavy Bike (2 Laps)

1. Adrian Sotres, Sutherland – 1:04:52

2. Devon Newman, Elphinstone – 1:05:58

3. Jarad Plato, Handsworth – 1:09:00

5. Alex Prochazka, Whistler – 1:14:43

Junior Boys (2 Laps)

1. Sean Stanhope, Chatelech – 54:28

2. Phil Cairns, Don Ross – 56:14

3. Erik Mulder, Argyle – 1:09:59

Junior Boys Heavy Bike (2 Laps)

1. James Clark, Thomas Haney – 1:07:35

2. Matt Diemer, Rockridge – 1:09:59

3. Connor Halliwell, Whistler – 1:14:50

10, Patrick Duval, Whistler – 1:29:00

Junior Girls (2 Laps)

1. Katherine Short, Chatelech

2. Calindy Ramsden, West Vancouver

3. Molly Paterson, Don Ross

4. Victoria Whitney, Whistler

Senior Boys (3 Laps)

1. Jeff Clarkson, Spectrum – 1:20:25

2. Kyle Kennedy, Collingwood – 1:25:56

3. West Vancouver – 1:28:07

Senior Boys Heavy Bike (3 Laps)

1. Dean Tennant, Pacific Christian – 1:31:17

2. Casey Walsh, West Vancouver – 1:41:38

3. Trevor Wallensteen, King’s Christian – 1:47:43

6. Tory Saarinen, Pemberton – 2:05:34

Senior Girls (2 Laps)

1. Sydney VanLoon, Pemberton – 1:09:37

2. Danielle Domik, Howe Sound – 1:10:17

3. Aislinn Merkel, Howe Sound – 1:14:59

8. Deborah Bayliss, Whistler – 1:32:24

Senior Girls Heavy Bike (2 Laps)

1. Annika Anderson, Whistler – 1:27:34

2. April Barry, St. Andrew’s Regional – 1:42:49