John Huybers has seen his Caledonia Nordic Ski Club host big events like the Canada Winter Games in 2015 and Canadian cross-country ski championships in 2005.
But never has Otway Nordic Centre gone global as host of an international event like it will this weekend with the start of the World Para Nordic Championships. Otway is wired for sight and sound and the host Caledonia club prepared to let a worldwide internet audience see for themselves what the city has to offer as a ski destination.
"It's our first world championship and Caledonia Nordic is used to big competitions, but this is being livestreamed into Europe, so literally there are millions of viewers and it's a great way to advertise northern British Columbia and Prince George itself, for its facility" said Caledonia club president John Huybers.
"People are going to see the ski club on TV in Europe and know about Prince George."
As soon as it was announced in December 2016 that Prince George had won the right to host the event, the wheels were already in motion. The club latched on to $350,000 provincial tourism grant to help pay for a $250,000 snowmaking system which was installed late last year. While the big dumps that came right around Christmas mean artificial snow won't likely be needed for the 10-day event, it will be there as a legacy to help attract future championships.
"As a condition for hosting this event we needed to put snowmaking in, which gave us a huge base, and conditions are fantastic right now," said Huybers. "There's the slight negative of the cold weather but we can't do anything about that.
"It's going to stay cool but we shouldn't have to cancel anything. We have two training days that we can move around in case we lose any days to cold weather. We have the advantage that we're starting the events 10 a.m., which is dinnertime in Europe, and that's what they want, prime-time viewing."
The WPNC combine cross-country skiing and biathlon and in both disciplines there are three race categories - sitting, standing and visually-impaired. The races begin Saturday with the 10- and 12.5-kilometre biathlon events. Cross-country takes the spotlight Sunday at Otway with free technique 10 km and 7.5 km events. Races follow on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. Races start at 10 a.m. and will be done by 4 p.m. each day.
Cross-country racers will compete in four events - freestyle sprint, mid-distance, long-distance classic technique, open/mixed relay. Biathletes will have three events - sprint, individual and mid-distance.
Medal ceremonies will follow on each race day at 7 p.m. and the Prince George Civic Centre auditorium. The hour-long opening ceremonies start this Friday at
6 p.m. at Canada Games Plaza.
While there will be free parking available at the site, there is a park and ride bus shuttle service to Otway that leaves twice daily from the Aquatic Centre (8:30 or 9 a.m., and 11 a.m.) and a return bus leaves from Otway twice a day (noon and between 2 and 4 p.m.).
The event is staged every two years. Local organizing committee chair Kevin Pettersen got a firsthand look at what it takes to host a Para Nordic World Cup last year in Canmore and also attended the 2017 WPNS in Finstrau, Germany.
"Finstrau is a very sparsely-populated area near the Czech Republic and it was kind of like a resort community so they had logistics (problems) around getting teams from all these little pensions and hotels, 40 or 50 minutes away, to the venue and back," Pettersen said. "I think we're real fortunate here for how close we are to our airport to our downtown to the venue.
"A lot of the pieces are coming together now. We were all along going to have live streaming and the International Paralympic Committee kicked in extra money so we can do everything we had envisioned. We wanted to be able to showcase and promote Prince George with video vignettes of the city and they're totally on board with that, so that will go out around the world. We've been pushing the frontiers with the IPC in a lot of ways and I think they are appreciating it that we are taking it to the next level."
Pettersen and his committee have done their homework creating a brand that's helping to market the event which has won the approval of the IPC and they're ready for the athletes, some of whom are already in Prince George testing out the slopes at Otway.
The Korean team arrived last week and skiers from the Ukraine and Great Britain were out testing the trail on the weekend. Team Canada was due to arrive on Monday. Most of the athletes raced a month ago at the IPC World Cup No. 2 in Ostersund, Sweden, Jan. 12-19.
The 13-member Canadian team includes skier/biathlete Mark Arendz of Hartsville, P.E.I., a World Cup and world championships multi-medalist, and visually-impaired skier Brian McKeever and his guide Graham Nisikawa, both of Canmore. McKeever, Canada's most decorated Paralympian, will be making his return to Otway Nordic Centre, having first raced there in the 2005 Western Canadian cross-country championships.
McKeever is the top-ranked visually-impaired male cross-country skier in the IPC world list, while Arendz is second in standing-skiing biathlon and fourth in cross-country.
Also on the Canadian team list are: Emily Young (North Vancouver, standing cross-country/biathlon), ranked third in the world in cross-country and ninth in biathlon.
The team also includes Natalie Wilkie (Salmon Arm, standing cross-country); Ethan Hess (Pemberton); Collin Cameron (Sudbury, Ont.); Brittany Hudac (Prince Albert, Sask., standing cross-country, biathlon); Russell Kennedy (Canmore, ski guide); Derek Zaplotinsky (Smokey Lake, Alta., sit-skiing); Kyle Barber (Lively, Ont.); Simon Lamarche (Quebec, ski guide); Yves Bourque (Bcancour, Que., sit-skiing); Jesse Bachinsky (Kenora, Ont., visually-impaired skiing).
The first World Cup event of the year was held December in Vuokatti, Finland, where athletes were tested to determine each individual's level of impairment for the rest of the season.
The classification is based on activity limitations and which muscles they can use and each athlete is assigned a percentage used as a multiplier to determine final times in races.
The timing software takes into account the level of impairment and figures out the adjusted times. In sprints, which utilize a hunter start format, athletes with a higher level of impairment start the race ahead of those with less impairment and whoever gets to the finish first wins.
The event will feature 120 athletes from 19 countries bringing 60 support staff for six days of competition. The participating countries are: Canada, United States, Armenia, Austria, Belarus, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Great Britain, Japan, Kazakhstan, Republic of Korea, Mongolia, Norway, Poland, Sweden, Tajikistan, and Ukraine.
Russia and China won't compete in Prince George and three of the smallest teams from Brazil, Croatia and Switzerland also declined invitations.
Russia is still under competition ban which expires March 15 for doping violations during the 2018 Olympics. China is in a diplomatic squabble with Canada and the United States over the arrest of Hauwei executive Meng Wanzhou and won't be sending its team.
"We have the strongest teams here," said Pettersen. "It's not like the ones that dropped out were big strong teams. Ukraine, Canada and Norway are all here and it will be the best of the best."
More information is available on the event website at www.2019worldparanordic.ca.
