“We’ve got a couple of kids on our team right now who are quite good,” Nordics’ Head Coach Dave Battison said. “They’re quite young.”
Andrea Lee and Stephen Morson are both working with Provincial Cross-Country ski teams right now – Lee with the B.C. Provincial Team and Morson with the B.C. Development Team. Both athletes started in the Jack Rabbits Program when they were younger; Battison has been coaching them for the past four years.
Morson was the Western Canadian Sprint Champion last year. Lee competed in the Canada Winter Games and medaled in the National Championships.
They are just two of 11 athletes on the Junior Team and quite a few Masters Racers who are quite good within the Province: Masters like Rob Trainor, Rick Morson and Brian Stamp, who have placed in the top three in their Divisions.
Of the club’s high-performance racers, Sarah Peters is in Victoria going to Med School and concentrating on dryland training: she ran the Victoria Marathon in the fall, finishing Third in her category.
Kit Richmond, who has already competed in World Cup Events, is in the United States on a full scholarship in Colorado. In 2006 he won the NCAA Distance Championship in cross-country skiing. He also represented Canada in two World Cups at Silver Star and Canmore in 2005.
As the older racers grow up and move away, the Nordics have only to look to their development racers to see the future: the eight to 11-year-olds. There are 15 of them right now, says Battison. “We’re teaching them to race.”