Local cross country ski athlete Ella Fuller made her national debut at a Nordic event in Gatineau, QC earlier this month.
Fuller raced alongside skiers from across Canada from March 10 to 16 at the Nakkertok Ski Centre. She had a podium finish in two of her three races and a first place standing in the aggregate results for her age range.
She was eliminated in the quarter finals in her very first event, but made a comeback in later races and claimed bronze in both the five kilometer ski, and the 7.5 kilometer ski, and landed in first place in the overall standings for 2009 girls.
She finished her final race only slightly behind Aramintha Bradford of Whitehorse, YT and Nadia Wallin of Williams Lake, B.C, who respectively claimed first and second place.
“I went into nationals thinking I would not even get close to the podium. The competition there, they’re super strong Nordic skiers,” she said.
The weather was unseasonably warm during the competition. Skiers raced in temperatures above 10 degrees and the snow was watery and slushy, which proved challenging.
“You were skiing on a strip of snow and there was summer on either side. It was really slushy and there were puddles everywhere and it was really hard to ski in,” Fuller recalled.
“Originally they’d planned four days of racing, but we only ended up getting three. It had poured rain the day before so the trails were in really bad shape.”
Nationals marks the end of an excellent ski season for Fuller. She previously competed at the B.C Winter Games near Quesnel, where she took home gold and silver medals.
She won the five kilometer ski event at Hallis Lake on a course that she described as being one of the most difficult she’d ever completed.
“It was very much a course that you had to work hard on every single bit. Those downhills, they weren’t steep enough that you could just rest,” she said.
She placed second in a short and exciting 400 meter sprint race in the historic gold rush town of Barkerville.
“There were four of us who went off together. Coming in to the finish, we were all neck and neck.”
Fuller said she’s thankful for support from family and friends
“I was super proud of myself, but also thankful for the people around me,” she said.
“I wouldn’t be able to able to do as well as I did without the training plan I have from my coach, or the support I have from my parents or the good skis I get from the wax techs. We fundraised a lot. We got donations and support.”