The defending men's and women's U SPORTS Champion UBC Thunderbirds are heading back across the Rockies this weekend as they look to defend their three-time conference sweep at the 2024 Canada West Cross Country Championships Saturday afternoon in Camrose, Alberta.
Having won each of the last three conference banners in both genders, the expectations for the blue and gold have perhaps never been higher, at least from the outside. But from within the teams themselves, the real goal is to ensure they're as prepared as possible for the upcoming U SPORTS National Championship races in two weeks' time in Kelowna.
"We really view Canada West as a stepping stone towards U SPORTS, so it's certainly a good competitive opportunity," said UBC lead endurance coach,
Steve Weiler. "It's nice for us to be able to bring the majority of the group to gain experience and have that benefit them in subsequent years. It is the Conference Championship and our focus across the Cross Country and Track and Field teams is the National Championships. So, we're looking to get a solid effort in, select our squad for U SPORTS and have a strong showing, but it's secondary to November and the national championships."
Another factor for the T-Birds, especially on the men's side, is a vastly different, and generally more inexperienced squad. Last year's conference gold medallist,
Andrew Davies, has since graduated, as has the 2023 Canada West silver medal winning
John Perrier. But UBC still has veteran leadership with the likes of
Jaiveer Tiwana and
Dylan Uhrich who finished third and fourth, respectively, at the 2023 conference race.
The UBC women's team continues to boast significant depth with veterans
Holly MacGillivray,
Jennifer Erickson and
Rachel Mortimer continuing to lead the way. But it is that depth in general which will be key to success in both genders come Saturday afternoon with the top five finishers counting toward each team's score.
"Last year at U SPORTS there was only 10.2 seconds separating fourth and 16
th place on the women's side," Weiler explained. "So, you think of all the little things you can do as well as mental composure and getting everything out of yourself. Five to ten seconds really isn't that much of a swing but when it can be five to ten points, often that person having their best day can be significantly more important than your top runner placing fourth versus second, for example."
"We're fortunate on the men's side to have
Sacha Schimmelpenninck back to workouts after a brief injury and looking really strong. We've got a really strong second year in
Maximilien Filion who's doing a great job and he might be more towards our front end finishers. On the women's side, we've got some strong returning runners who weren't able to make our top seven last year in what was an incredibly strong squad. For people like
Amelia Pfohl,
Katelyn Cotterell and
Abby Ylipahkala, they could be extremely instrumental if they end up as our fourth or fifth runners behind some top end people like
Holly MacGillivray or
Rachel Mortimer."
Aside from the personnel changes, this year's Canada West course is a big shift from what the 'Birds have been used to. Last year's Kelowna route – which will be used again at this year's U SPORTS meet – was both familiar to the T-Birds, and also relatively flat. The Stoney Creek Park course in Camrose is not only new to UBC, but it also boasts some serious inclines making for a very different situation all around.
"On a particularly challenging course at a championship, there's a lot of room to make mistakes and at the same time there's a lot of room to run smart and take advantage of that; we're just looking to do the latter."
The Canada West Championships begin with the men's eight kilometre race at 11:00 a.m. PT followed by the women's race an hour later. Live results will be available
HERE.
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