It was another early morning wake-up for Team Helly Hansen as racers Jeff Riemer, Kristenn Magnusson, Justin Mark and Jay Latiff made the dash for the 6:30 am boat to Horseshoe Bay. The team was joined by trainer/coach/photographer Carey Sather 3 time overall women's 10km Yeti Champion now 11 weeks pregnant carrying twins. With team members Stephan Jakobson, Ceri Merritt, Robin Dutton, John Loewen and Bobbie Taylor unable to race Team Helly met up with their last minute addition and potential saviour Andreas Hestler at the base of Grouse. Andreas had joked earlier in the week about skipping the tram ride and hiking to the top. Turned out he was serious. After a bumpy and nauseated trip up the skytram (I freaking hate amusement park rides.) The team crammed into the washroom to gear up for the day's event. Dreams of blue skies and high sunshine were dashed by a cold fog mixed with light snow. Earlier in the season I had promised the team that each course would be progressively easier, I was wrong. The Grouse course, with 15cm of new snowfall and fresh cut powder singletrack, turned out to be a real grind. Colin Dignam and Andrew Clarke led the race out, followed closely by a half dozen other racers, including team HH members Justin Mark and Jeff Riemer. Jason Loutitt who was running very strong made a hard charge on the hills to take the lead halfway through the race. The top 10 stayed relatively close until the summit. Usually in most races the uphills is where the race is decided, however a 2km straight shot descent to the finish really favoured the strong downhill runners. Justin, Andreas and Jeff finished 7th, 8th and 9th overall respectively, each losing a couple places on the downhill. Jay Latiff finished up in the top 20 with his strongest race to date and Kristenn finished in 4th just off the podium. Despite missing half the team, it looked like Team Helly was going to pull out an overall team victory. No such luck, turns out Andreas had secretly defected to TEAM ATLAS CANADA earlier that morning, succumbing to a lucrative contract offered up by cunning team manager and course designer Dave Howells. Helly's fate was sealed, outmanuevered and undergunned the team failed to qualify for the Team Category with only 4 racers. Seems like I have a lot to learn about being a GM in the cutthroat world of professional snowshoeing. Team Helly Hansen would like to thank the organizers for a fantastic event and all the wonderful volunteers for donating their Saturday. See everyone at the Snowshoe Championships at Cypress.
Written by J. Mark
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