Cross Country Canada: A Short History
The Organization:
The first sport governing body for all competitive skiing in Canada was the Canadian Amateur Ski Association (CASA) which was incorporated in 1920 and was responsible for cross-country skiing, alpine and jumping. Later, the CASA became the Canadian Ski Association (CSA). In 1969, cross- country skiing was given full discipline status under the name Cross Country Canada and became more than just a standing committee of the CSA. The discipline included biathlon at that time.
Four years later, in 1973, the chair of Cross Country Canada became a full member of the CSA Executive Committee, thus giving cross-country skiing a greater role in the management of Canadian skiing. In 1978 biathlon chose to leave the Cross Country Canada mandate.
By 1980, the stage was set for major organizational changes within Cross Country Canada and in 1984, after several years of planning and re-organization, it was incorporated and its first constitution was adopted. However, the CSA remained as the overall authority for skiing on the international stage and served as the voice of Canadian skiing at meetings of the International Ski Federation (FIS).
In 1989 more changes were made: the CSA was re-organized into a federation of autonomous disciplines (Cross Country Canada, Alpine, Jumping, Biathlon, Freestyle etc.) and CCCs constitution was re-written to recognize its new status as a truly independent body. The link to CSA remained as FIS recognizes only one ski organization per country.
National Ski Team members and coaches:
Over the years there have been many National Ski Team athletes and coaches and
going back many years were the first
Canadian Olympic cross-country skiers who competed in the 1928 Games in St.
Moritz.
National committee chairs and members:
In 1984, the national committees included the National Ski Team, Athlete
Development, Touring and Recreation, Coaching and Sport Science, Officials,
Marketing, Competitions, Jackrabbits and the Women’s. Over the past quarter
century other committees have been formed and disbanded at various times. The
current committees consist of High Performance, Coach and Athlete Development,
Marketing, Events, Clubs & Membership, Women on Skis as well as Awards
& Recognition.
CCC Boards of Directors:
CCCs Board of Directors was comprised of the chairs of the provincial and
territorial ski divisions and the CCC Executive from 1984 until 2004, when the
structure of the organization underwent another significant change. The Board
is currently comprised of the president, six directors at large, the chair
of the Division Chairs’ Council and an athlete representative.
CCC office staff:
By the mid-seventies, CCC at last rented its own office space: a very small room at 333 River Road, Ottawa and employed a couple of administrative staff members. The office moved to James Naismith Dr in 1989 and then CCC moved to the Bill Warren Training Centre in Canmore, April 1999. Over the years since that very small room, many people have been employed by CCC.
The 80’s and 90’s at CCC
The
seventies saw a boom in Canadian cross-country ski participation, based on it’s
strength as a relatively inexpensive, outdoor, fitness activity. The eighties
saw a great deal of change in Canadian cross-country skiing, at both a Development
and High Performance/National Team level.
The change was ushered in as 2 significant events took place in Canada, the
first World Junior Nordic Championships in Mont Ste. Anne in 1979, and the
first Canadian World Cup event, The Finals in Whitehorse in 1981.
A National Planning seminar in the late 70’s was a catalyst that would provide more focussed organization for many aspects of our sport, and started us on the road to where the Association presently stands, with World Cup and Major Games medals an expectation rather than a rare exception.
From the planning seminar the sport adopted Manitoba’s Jackrabbit Program as a national model for youth development. Pivotally as well, the National Coaching and Officials programs were formalized, with Al Maddox, Heinz Niederhauser, Ian Rawes and Trice Cameron, among others, playing important parts in getting these programs established. The changes also included a reorganization of the National Team program, where Marty Hall’s tenure began.
At the beginning of the 80’s the sport was still a discipline of the Canadians Ski Association (CSA), and functioned somewhat under their direction and overall control, which tended to be more Alpine oriented.
A key step in the early part of the decade was separating from the CSA, to become Cross Country Canada (CCC), an autonomous, financially independent Association, that still was affiliated with the CSA for FIS representation and a few other governance related functions. Dave Rees, a former National Team member and long time CCC volunteer in many capacities was the prime impetus in making this happen. This allowed the sport to focus directly on the needs of cross country skiers with their activities and control their own destiny.
A second major influence on the direction of the sport in the decade was the awarding of the Winter Olympics to Calgary. This resulted in a strong Government and Canadian Olympic Association orientation towards “Best Ever” performances on home soil. Benefits to the sport included greater funding, but also the creation of the brand-new Canmore Nordic Centre, and a legacy program for after the Games, administered by the Calgary Olympic Development Association (CODA) now WinSport. CODA helped develop the Bill Warren Training Centre and the Haig Glacier training facility as well as providing funding that helped fund the sports High Performance Programming and in the mid to late 90’s ensure the sport’s national level survival after drastic government cutbacks.
With the
focus on “Best Ever” results, Sport Canada also required sports to undertake
extensive planning exercises, that included another National planning
conference for CCC in the early 80’s. Many initiatives were developed here that
have become mainstays of the sports, such as the Canada Points List, a National
Race series, at that time the Canada Cup, National Coaches seminars and the
International Coaches Experience Program (ICE), now HPCE.
At the National office of CCC former National Team racer Malcolm Hunter led the
association out of some financial challenges in the mid eighties as it focussed
on Calgary, and long-time employee Raezelle Goldmann was a constant in the
administrative support area. On the technical side Anton Scheier was
extensively involved in the development of the coaching and athlete development
programs, with Dave Dyer responsible for the events and officiating areas.
In the latter part of the decade two new significant factors came into play that would have a significant influence on the development of the High-Performance system. First the International Olympic Committee decided to change timing of the Olympic Games so that Summer and Winter Games weren’t held in the same year. This resulted in 2 Winter Games being awarded, 2 years apart, with Albertville taking place in 1992, and the Lillehammer Games in 1994. This resulted in some increased Government and Olympic support for the winter sports in Canada. The next announcement, that came not much later, was that the 1995 World Championships would be awarded to Thunder Bay.
From a technical viewpoint, there were many advances in the sport in the eighties, from clothing, to ski and grooming equipment, to wax, technique and race formats. It was an exciting time with a lot of changes and CCC did it’s best to keep up and move ahead of the leading edge.
There had been some Sport Science activity with the team in the 70’s but it tended to be a somewhat sporadic approach with Dr. Ken Sidney and Dr. Wendy Jerome and others from Laurentian University in Sudbury providing some testing support to the team in the latter part of the decade.
With the arrival of Marty Hall, sponsorship dollars from Shaklee Canada and some additional “Best Ever” funding the Sport Science Committee was established as a significant support program for the team. Pete Saar a former racer and coach was hired to coordinate the program, and they began regular meetings with the coaches and a consistent Physiological and Medical Monitoring program was established.
Initially Dr. Dave Smith was the team physiologist, until Dr. Alfred Reed took over that aspect of the program. There was a lot of innovations with the program, and one of the first ski treadmills in the world was used in the testing program, starting in 1986 at the University of Ottawa. Dr. Rob Lloyd-Smith looked after the medical monitoring of the team and physician support on trips. He also became elected to the FIS Medical Committee as we tried to promote the Anti-doping message at the FIS level.
Our psychologist was Dr. Brent Rushall and we were ably supported in the biomechanics area by Dr. Robert Norman (who had worked with Finnish biomechanics researchers at the 1978 World Championships in Lahti) and then later Dr. Benoit Roy and Dr. Moira McPherson, both avid skiers.
The 1983/84 season saw the advent of skating technique on the World Cup, an opportunity for Canada, as all the nations were trying to learn these new techniques, with several of the more traditional countries such as Norway and Sweden coming out against this major change to the sport. This went as far as nets placed on the side of the course to prevent skate actions to the side, to preserve the diagonal stride. To think back then it was difficult to believe you could ski the course without grip wax…. Eventually sanity prevailed and the 50/50 mix of techniques became the norm.
In Canada, we worked hard at quantifying the techniques, developing teaching methods and a common National terminology with in particular, the support of Dr. Norman. We held a National Coaching seminar focussed on skating and sent out videos to the clubs to help stay at the leading edge of the evolving technique. This information was also incorporated into newly update coaching manuals.
The efforts to embrace and understand skating probably paid off on the results page, with Canadians quickly learning the technique and excelling in the skate events. A prime example of that success would be the 4th place result by Canada’s Jane Vincent, (a skating specialist) in the 1986 World Junior Championships in lake Placid.
Canada also was at the “leading edge” in several other technical areas of the sport.
On the anti-doping front CCC worked at promoting the anti-doping message in the FIS through the efforts of Dr. Rob Lloyd-Smith on the Medical Committee and by conducting the first ever, anti-doping controls at the Labrador City World Cup in in 1985 and blood testing controls at Canadian World Cups in 1991. Of interest one of the medalist in Labrador City seemed to avoid the Doping Control marshalls at the finish, and turned up at the control 15 minutes later, ready to give a sample.
We seem to still have some way to go in the anti-doping area, but it is interesting to note that with blood testing carried out at the 1989 World Championships, the performances from a number of athletes seemed to decrease a bit and the Canadian results seemed to be improving. At that point, the team were doing extensive lactate testing, in the lead up to the Worlds and at the finish line at the event. Based on lactate results a Finnish lab technician predicted strong results for Al Pilcher, who had a record 7th place result in the 50k, a mark that has only recently been overtaken by Alex Harvey.
There were other innovations from Canada. In the lead-up to the World Juniors in Lake Placid. Canada hosted an international race in Gatineau, at Jacques Cartier Park, the site of the recent World Cup sprint. The Junior teams from Canada, Italy, Sweden and France attended and the race was a unique event, very much like the present format of the Team Sprint today. Canada also was the first, or possibly one of the first international teams to start racing in two-piece suits, allowing for easier changes of clothing and less complicated bathroom breaks. It is interesting that the cool uniform for the younger generation of racers today, is the one-piece suit…
Canada was also on the leading edge of wax and ski testing. Up into the early 70’s and early 80’s skiers would grip wax most of the ski. While teams were experimenting with adding alpine wax to the tips and tails, cross country glide wax, wasn’t really commercially available until 1984, when the choice at the World Juniors for wax testing was Red, Purple, Blue or Green Swix glider.
Ski preparation was another program that Canada was on the forefront off, hiring a fulltime Wax Technician in 1987 by the name of John Plummer. John oversaw our team’s approach to ski preparation, with skating and the introduction of Cera F, caused seismic changes to this aspect of our sport. Future NST coach Dave Wood took over from John in this position in the early 90’s with Canada consistently having among the fastest skis around, especially when you factor in the personnel and financial resources of the country.
The 80’s saw tremendous changes in our sport, internationally and in Canada. Pierre Harvey’s 3 World Cup wins in the latter part of the decade and an Olympics in Canada set a new performance standard for Canada at the international level. These successes helped inspire the next generation of Canadian skiers, such as Beckie Scott, Sara Renner and Chandra Crawford, that went on to establish a winning tradition in Canadian skiing.
The 80’s closed with an excellent result at the 1989 World Junior Championships in Vang, Norway. Eighteen-year-old Marie-Josée Pepin capturing a silver medal in the 15k skating events, behind future Italian World Cup star Stefania Belmondo.
The 90’s a bit like a roller coaster for the organization, with Marty Hall leaving the organization after the ‘92 Olympics and Anton Scheier taking on the new role as High Performance Director, looking to create better links throughout the system. On the National Team side Steinar Mundal was hired to lead the National Team and Dave Wood began working as the Junior Team coach, with veteran racer Yves Bilodeau taking on the Ski Technician role.
The departure of some veteran skiers and very strict Olympic qualifying criteria saw the Canadian Team size at Olympics reduced to 1 athlete at the ‘94 Games in Lillehammar. Dany Bouchard was the lone Canadian representative, with Donald Farley missing out by a couple of seconds. Lillehammar was probably the greatest ever cross-country Olympic experience with over 100,000 spectators lining the trails to cheer on their heros.
There were several changes undertaken in the structure of the High-Performance system in the 90’s, the most significant being the establishment of 3 Training Centres, in Canmore, Thunder Bay and Mont Ste. Anne. In previous years, many of the top athletes did not have regular interaction with the NST coaches, Sport Science/Medical personnel, or quality training partners and had to travel long distances to attend training camps. The aim of the Training Centre program was to allow these athletes to move to a training area where they could gain that regular interaction with quality support staff and coaching, and at the same time train with their peers in great training conditions.
Other system changes were the move to a combined National Championships so for among other reasons, top junior athletes could compete at the same venue with most of the best seniors and recognize that there was a skiing future after leaving the junior ranks. This concept was also encouraged in major domestic races where the top juniors and seniors raced in an open class at many events allowing direct comparisons to be made between the various ages of athletes. The idea would be also to intensify the competitive level of the races, to more closely resemble the competition density in Europe.
Another significant
change was a greater emphasis on club results both through the club relay and
the club ranking at the National Championships.
In much of Scandinavia it is the club system that is significantly responsible
for athlete development and it was felt that providing an avenue for more
competition between the clubs, and recognition of the success of the club and
the coaches, would lead to greater development at the local level.
In 1995 the World Championships came to Canada for the first time, with the Big
Thunder Ski Centre in Thunder Bay, the venue for the events. There was some
great racing and some extreme weather challenges, as unseasonably warm
conditions created a lot of puddles, mud, and dirt in the snow. It wasn’t the
most successful event for the Canadian team, with rumours of EPO use
circulating through the teams and wax techs placing ski-cleaning boards soaked
with diesel on the trails, to provide the athletes with some glide. On the plus
side, the organizers did an excellent job in difficult circumstances and it was
the Major Games debut for a young Canadian skier called Beckie Scott, who
finished with a high placing of 40th in the 15k race.
From there the rest of the 90’s were a big challenge for CCC, that threatened
it’s survival.
Shortly after the Worlds the Big Thunder complex was shutdown by it’s owners the Ontario Government in a cost cutting effort. Then the CCC budget from Sport Canada was decimated by federal budget cuts, of over 50%, with Olympic funding also decreasing due to less than stellar performances.
In an attempt to maintain at least barebones funding for the National Team, the office staff was reduced from 9 employees to 4, with Malcolm Hunter, back for a 2nd time as Executive Director trying to manage CCC’s survival. Anton Scheier looked after the NST, Coaching and Athlete Development, with longtime employee Paul Graner, working on NST admin, Events and Officiating. They were supported administratively by Raezelle Goldmann, all sharing an office space the size of a studio apartment.
The office was further downsized towards the end of the 90’s with Anton Scheier running all the technical aspects of the sport from his garage in Ottawa, and Joanne Thomson the administrative functions, from office space provided by CODA/WinSport in Canmore. There was also great volunteer support, leadership and commitment at that time from key volunteers in the sport including the Chairman Tony Daffern and National Ski Chairman Tom Holland, who went on to be High Performance Director once some more stable financing came about with the lead up to the 2002 Olympics. Bruce Jeffries was also instrumental to the organization, spending part of his retirement as a volunteer Executive Director for the organization.
On the snow there was still some optimism with the World Junior Championships returning to Canada, this time to Canmore, Alberta. A young Canadian women’s team was developing including Amanda Fortier, ( 8th at the World Juniors in 1996), along with her sister Jaime, Sara Renner, Beckie Scott and Milaine Theriault among the more notable skiers. Dave Wood would lead this group at the junior and then after 1998 at the senior level.
The 1998 Olympics took place in Nagano, Japan and a Canadian Team, hampered by a flu epidemic that went through the athletes, struggled on the courses. Nonetheless it was an important experience for particularly the young women’s team, that came back strong in Salt Lake City in 2002 capped off by Beckie’s, eventually, gold medal performance in the pursuit.
Gradually in the 2000’s the sport began to make it back on track with Beckie’s World Cup successes and Chandra Crawford’s gold and Sara Renner’s silver medal performance at the Games in 2006. Another important factor in the revival was improved funding that started to become available with the awarding of the 2010 Olympics to Vancover/Whistler. Medals at Major Games and World Cups were now a somewhat regular expectation of the team.