Labrador City Cross country skier, Alf Parsons says the recent World Masters cross country ski championships were one of his best set of races ever.
“I did better than I expected, it was a great week,” Parsons told the Aurora.
No doubt his first race, a 15k freestyle event set the tone for the rest of the week. Parsons took a silver in that event, in a time of 38mins 16 secs.
The races took place in Minneapolis Minnesota.
“In the first part of the week we were skiing on manmade snow, but, then we had a good snowfall and it was back to the real thing,” Parsons explained.
Parsons second race was a 7.5 event, in which he placed fourth a mere 14 seconds behind the bronze medalist.
The third race was a team event, the 4 x 7.5 relay.
For that race an interesting thing happened for Parsons.
“In order to ski with the team, they were in category 7, that is a younger age group than my category 8, so I had to compete in a younger category,” Parsons told the Aurora.
Despite competing against younger skiers, Parsons anchored the team and the Canadians took the bronze.
His final race was the 30 k freestyle, an event that Parsons enjoys. Again it was silver in a time of 1 hour 29 mins 35 secs.
Parsons told the Aurora the event was well organized, and he said the medal ceremonies were excellent, with the event being broadcast on a large screen that showed the names of medalists. The medals were also unique, they were larger than usual and made of wood.
But Parsons came home with more than three medals, and here’s why.
The World Masters results also served as the criteria for the Canadian Masters, Parsons explained to the Aurora.
“Any year the World Masters are in Canada or the U.S., then the results count for both, that prevents racers having to travel to two separate events”, he says.
That meant Parsons race times amounted to thee gold from the Canadian Masters. Despite all this, Parsons was back at Menihek Nordic Ski Club, his home base, when the Aurora caught up with him, just days after returning from the worlds.
It was another day helping out with the trails, chopping some wood for the fireplace and, of course a few k’s on the trails. After all there’s a ton of snow, and still a few more races before it’s all over.
