Athlete feature: Thomas Stieber from Kanata in M1 category
Thomas was our most prolific Ontario Masters medal winner in Canmore. Thomas managed to come home with 4 gold medals. He won gold in every event he entered and the maximum number for the games. Thomas raced in classic technique in the youngest age category 30-34 so we can expect to see more great performances in the years to come.
Until recently, Thomas had very little focus on training - but was certainly passionate about the outdoors, enjoying sports like kitesurfing, cycling, running, and gliding (he holds numerous Canadian Gliding records: https://www.sac.ca/.../fai.../current-canadian-records). Winter has always been Thomas's absolute favourite time of the year with his interests on snow, going from predominantly downhill skiing & snowboarding to almost entirely xc skiing.
Thomas picked up cross country skiing in 2015. After a couple years of skate skiing in nearby Gatineau Park, his neighbour Mark Orzel (former pro bike racer & national cross-country runner, current Masters racer in M6 category) introduced him to structured training. Thomas started training with Mark regularly, but found that skate skiing aggravated old ankle injuries so he switched to classic skis - courtesy of Mark . Training with Mark turned out not to be a seasonal endeavour, with cycling in the summer, filling the skiing void. Thomas's garage (like most Masters nordic skiers) has since filled with bikes and skis. Mark's enthusiasm quickly spread to Thomas's partner, Carlee Glendenning, who also competed at Canmore in the W1 category!
Congrats to Thomas on his great performance at his first World Cup and a big thank you to Mark for mentoring Thomas and Carlee into Masters nordic racing! Happy to see Canadians represented in the younger categories as they are the future of the sport!
No comments:
Post a Comment