NICOLA MACLEOD
April 9, 2014
For the The New Brunswick Beacon

New Brunswick Athletes took up half the spots on Team Atlantic at the U14 CanAm ski race in Sugarloaf, Maine last week.

The CanAms are an ski annual race bringing together the best 12 and 13 ski racers from Atlantic Canada, Quebec, Ontario and the Eastern United States. The venue rotates back and forth each year between Sugarloaf and Mont Tremblant, QC.

For New Brunswick athletes, it is an opportunity to compete on a mountain much bigger than anything in Atlantic Canada. The woman’s team consisted of Katherine Mills (NB), Gabrielle Rutter (NB), Lindsay Myles (NS), Cameron MacLeod (PE) and Megan Colbourne (NL). The men’s team was Caeden Carruthers (NB), Brandyn Cooke (NB) and John David Todd (NS).

“It means a lot because I can really push my limits and be challenged by others,” says Carruthers, 12, from Fredericton. Carruthers races out of the Crabbe Mountain Race Club.

On Friday, racers competed in the skills competition where they did drills and were judged based on their technical ability. The giant slalom race was on Saturday and slalom on Sunday.

The event was dominated by the Americans, who took home all four of the gold medals in women’s slalom and giant slalom and men’s slalom and giant slalom events. John David Todd from Halifax had the best finish from Team Canada. He finished 17 out of 67 boys in slalom.

For most athletes, CanAms means the end of the competitive season. They will resume their dry-land training and get back on snow in the late fall.