Sunday was a banner day on the slopes for the Caledonia Nordic Ski Club -- on both sides of the country.
The medal parade started in Thunder Bay, Ont., at the Haywood Ski National cross-country championships, where Kaia Andal of Prince George beat a path to gold in the juvenile girls five-kilometre free technique race.
Andal, 16, took advantage of quick conditions to complete the course in 15:02.9, winning by 9.7 seconds over Molly Miller of Kimberley. Anna Goodwin of North Vancouver finished 34.7 seconds behind Andal to win bronze and complete the podium sweep for Team B.C.
"I didn't expect to win but they were telling us splits so I knew where I was (in relation to the other skiers)," said Andal, who considers free technique races her favourite events. "The conditions were good but the downhills were a little icy."
In other Caledonia cross-country results, Pippa Roots, 17, was 52nd in the junior girls 5km national race.
Closer to home, at the Canadian biathlon championships in Hinton, Alta., Logan Sherba, Claire Lapointe and Bobby Kreitz, all of the Caledonia club, teamed up for a gold-medal triumph in Sunday's senior boys/senior girls 3 X 4.5km relay .
Sherba, who got food poisoning the night before the race and was sick to his stomach, started the relay and tagged Lapointe, while Kreitz skied the anchor leg for a combined time of 44:53.9, 15.7 seconds ahead of second-place Alberta, 1:44.9 in front of the bronze medalists from Quebec. Sherba used to spare rounds in the relay, Lapointe fired one and Kreitz dipped into his reserve supply to knock down two targets and avoid penalty time.
Sherba, 16, had a breakthrough week at the national event. He finished fourth in the sprint on Wednesday, was eighth in the pursuit Thursday, and placed 11th in Saturday's individual race.
Jasper MacKenzie of Kelowna combined forces with Prince George biathletes Sarah Beaudry and Matt Neumann to claim the bronze medal in the men's/women's 3 X 6km relay.
A second Alberta team (Macx Davies, Emma Lunder and Kai Skinstad) posted the second-fastest time but Biathlon Canada rules limit each province to just one relay medal. That bumped Quebec up from third into the silver medal position.
MacKenzie, Beaudry and Neumann shot clean in the race and finished in 56:47.6, 52.2 seconds off the winning pace set by Alberta (Andrew Chisholm, Zina Kocher, Adam Millar).
Colton MacDougall of Prince George was also awarded bronze medal as part of the B.C. youth relay team with Angus Tweedie Smithers and Jenna Smailes of West Kelowna. Three Alberta teams crossed the finish ahead of MacDougall, who skied the anchor leg and had three missed targets, but only the first-place Alberta team (Adam Runnels, Megan Bankes and Sergey Bochkarnikov) made the podium. Quebec won silver.
In the junior mixed relay, Emily Dickson, and Arthur Roots of Caledonia and Jarod Algra of Abbotsford finished fifth. Ontario (Jason Lawton, Alex Dupuis and Leilani Tam Von Burg) won gold.
