This year Louison Dubief, a member of the Fernie Nordic race team joined the Alberta World Cup Academy, one of the three national training centres for cross-country skiing in Canada, based in Canmore and Calgary, AB. The Academy is the training centre of some of the best athletes in Canada, and a big group of the top female skiers in the country.
Louison is just coming back from the Canadian World Juniors and World Cup selection trials in Thunder Bay, ON. This was an amazing learning experience for her, as she got to do more high level racing and see how the Academy operates at high stake races like those. Unfortunately, she missed her qualification for the World Junior Championships by one spot.
She is the first spare for World Juniors happening in Italy at the beginning of February. Her races went well overall, but as she unfortunately got sick and she was not able to race the last race of the trip. Despite a little bit of frustration to be the first spare for this international event this year, it is a very positive and encouraging experience that gives her big goals for next season.
Her next big races coming up this season are the Canadian Western Championships in Kimberley, BC, and the Canadian National Championships happening in Canmore, AB in March. She will also potentially be going to Sweden for the cross-country BC B-Tour at the end of March. She would like to thank all her support groups for the ongoing encouragements and help. It takes a lot of work and support to help athlete achieve high level sports.