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Best in the West: Reith on top at XC Westerns

The Whistler Nordics entered a team at the Haywood Westerns for the second time ever last weekend in Canmore, with Devo Team skiers taking on the best young cross-country skiers from B.C. and Alberta.
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The Whistler Nordics entered a team at the Haywood Westerns for the second time ever last weekend in Canmore, with Devo Team skiers taking on the best young cross-country skiers from B.C. and Alberta.

It went incredibly well with one athlete, 14-year-old Austin Reith, winning two gold medals and placing fourth in another event. He'd won some races before but nothing at that level.

"It was pretty cool to podium at that event," he said. "Now I can't wait for nationals."

Reith will compete at nationals, despite the fact that there is no midget category. He'll compete as a junior against kids at least two years older — and he's still hoping for a top 10.

In addition to training with the Whistler Nordics Devo Team he says he skis a lot on his own as well as play hockey. "So I'm out most days of the week."

As well as the Whistler Nordics, the National Athlete Development Centre-Callaghan Valley and Callaghan Valley Training Centre (CVTC) sent a few athletes along as well.

Geoffrey Richards of the CVTC had a solid performance in the 10km interval classic race, placing seventh overall in a field of 70 racers. Martin Schrama was 23rd, Colin Abbott 34th, Jeffrey Kerkovius 35th, Colin Ferrie 40th and Stefan Sander-Green 56th. Thomsen D'Hont, who lives in Whistler but races for the Northwest Territories, was 36th.

In Juvenile Girls 5km, Jenya Nordin and Lauren Doak were eighth and ninth respectively out of 37 starters.

In Midget Boys, Whistler's Austin Reith outsprinted a field of 40 racers to place first overall, with a gap of almost 10 seconds over the next racer in the group.

In the skate sprint race, Colin Abbott stepped up for the CVTC to place 17th among Senior Men, while D'Hont placed 21st.

In Junior Women, the CVTC's Adriene Underhill placed sixth overall.

Colin Ferrie led the locals in fifth place in Junior Men, followed by Martin Schrama in sixth and Geoffrey Richards in seventh. Jeff Wood was 10th, Stefan Sander-Green 11th and Jeffrey Kerkovius 14th.

In Juvenile Girls, Jenya Nordin was eighth for Whistler and the B.C. development team out of 41 skiers. Lauren Doak was 13th.

Reith was fourth in the Midget Boys sprint, less than a second off the podium.

The last event was the pursuit race.

In the Open Men's race Geoffrey Richards was 12th, Colin Abbott 30th, Jeffrey Kerovius 38th, Colin Ferrie 39th, Martin Schrama 40th and Jeff Wood 42nd.

Austin Reith picked up his second gold medal of the weekend in Midget Boys, this time with a narrow win over Stefan Martin of the Canmore Nordic Ski Club. There were 47 racers in the category.

Lauren Doak was sixth in Juvenile Girls and Jenya Nordin eighth.

Richards gaining confidence

The Callaghan Valley Training Centre's Geoffrey Richards, 19, has been on a tear this year, taking on national development team racers at events and posting some of the biggest results of his young career. At the recent Haywood NorAms at Whistler Olympic Park he won the junior sprint, placed fourth in the skiathlon and placed seventh in the 10km classic race. This past weekend he added two seventh place results at the Cross-Country Westerns in Canmore.

The results garnered Richards an invite to join the national junior and Under 23 team at the World Championships in Turkey from Feb. 19 to 26 — a stepping stone to bigger and better things for the young athlete.

Richards said the results have been somewhat unexpected."Definitely, it's been a bit of a surprise," he said.

This is Richards' second year with the CVTC, and it took a little time getting used to being away from his home in the Kootenays. "This year is just a lot smoother. We had a couple of really good altitude camps, and there is a really great team to train with," he said.

Richards is particularly pleased with his classic skills. "Up until the first race of this year I would say I was mediocre in classic races, and just didn't have the confidence to do well," he said. "(Now) I can just go out and relax and have a good race as opposed to trying really hard to go fast and not go fast."

His goal in Turkey is to get a sense of what international racing is all about. "And I want to do well," he said. "I'd say for goals it's probably top 20. And yeah, I want to see what the racing is like and get a feel for it, so hopefully the next time I race internationally it will be a little smoother and I'll know what to expect."

The fact that Canada's national level athletes are doing so well and have won three podiums in the past few weeks is also a confidence boost for Richards, who has seen Canadians become world contenders.

"A couple of years ago when I was coming up it wasn't so much," he said. "We were kind of far back with the pack. We didn't have a whole lot of hope it seemed like and now the medals are appearing for Canada at the World Cup it's a big incentive and really encouraging that we can do well."

In the short-term, Richard's goal is to secure a place with the senior level national development team. He'd still race and train out of the CVTC, but at a level higher. From there the goal would be to join the national team in Canmore, Alberta as a development level skier, although it could take a few years to get there.

"I'm still quite young for the (national) development team, but it's definitely something I hope that's in my near future," he said.

Plus, he believes there's a chance that the national program could come to him.

"There has been talk of moving the national team to Whistler just because of the snow — it's all natural snow, where Canmore, even last week, had the snow guns going full bore. It's a longer season, and we have a gym right here, we have housing, and we have the Callaghan, which is a prime training area."

Richards will leave for Turkey about 10 days before the championships to spend some time acclimatizing. The venue is at about 2,000 metres of elevation, which is 150 metres higher than the elevation at the Roundhouse.