XC Junior Champs
Published Mon 11 Sep 2023
The 2023 Australian Junior Championship for cross country skiing was held at Perisher on the first weekend of September, but only just. Due to deteriorating snow conditions, the event was held as two point-to-point time trials in Classic and Freestyle technique on the same day, with no sprint finals.
Four hours of shovelling by about a dozen volunteers the day before helped to make a 1-kilometre course viable. Together with the work of Iggy the Perisher XC groomer, the resulting track was actually in excellent condition. Competitors had to wait at the finish until everyone had finished before they could ski back to the start and get ready for the next race.
In the Open Junior Men category Samuel Johnson from Canberra won both Classic and Freestyle races, while for the Open Junior Women Darcie Morton from Marlo won the Classic and Ava McCann from Sydney the Freestyle. The Open Junior class normally covers only U20 and U18 competitors, however with these modified events all the U16 competitors skied the same distance. For the Classic race the U14 and U12 athletes skied a shorter 800m course, while for the Freestyle race all athletes raced the full 1.0 km distance.
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Ava McCann and Samuel Johnson in action in the Freestyle event
In the U12 classes, Bethany Franzke and Eric Murtagh-Herlihy won both Classic and Freestyle events. For U14, Hanna Wichgers and Alberto Allan also made a clean sweep. The U16 Women's events were split, with Damika Morton winning the Classic and Satara Moon winning the Freestyle, while Tyler Bradford won both U16 Men's races. Samuel Johnson won both U18 Men's races, while Ava McCann and Oliva Schubert won one each for the U18 Women. Heli Laajoki was the fastest U20 Woman for both events, with Jack Hirst taking the gold medal for the U20 Men Classic and Max Morgan reversing the order of the top two to take gold in the U20 Men Freestyle.
Results for all age classes are linked here via Alpine Timing:
That was the end of the Australian Championships for 2023. Many thanks to all the volunteers who helped to make this event happen.
