Jesse Winter will be competing at the Alberta World Cup next week, and at the Under 23 World Championships in Szczryk, Poland the week after.
THUNDER BAY — Jesse Winter says that if you asked him this past August whether or not he’d be racing against the world’s elite cross country skiers this season, he would have flat out said no.
But Winter, raised in South River, will be doing just that next week when he slaps on his skies at the Alberta World Cup in Canmore next week and again a week later in Szczyrk, Poland at the Under 23 World Championships.
When he heard the news that he had been selected to join the Canadian teams at the competition, Winter says he, “went through the roof. It was incredible. It was a huge surprise.”
His selection to the team hinged on his recent performance at an Ontario Cup race in Duntroon where he placed a very close second in the sprint competition there. Winners of the races were automatically on the team, but there was also one or two spots left “exceptional cases.”
“That doesn’t get announced until a few days after and I was starting to get down on myself that I hadn’t made it,” said Winter.
He says he had already started planning the rest of his ski season on the North American circuit thinking he had missed out on the much more competitive world one when his coach announced the former Almaguin Highlands Secondary School student’s selection.
Now he’s excited to be racing against the world’s elite during the build up to the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
“Thor Hushovd from Norway is probably the fastest ski sprinter in the world and I get to race on the exact same course as him . . .Even if I wasn’t racing I would be excited just to see these guys in action,” said Winter.
Winter says he isn’t looking at the Canmore event as a place where he will be going for gold, but somewhere he’ll pick up a lot of experience.
“You have to qualify in the top 30 to move on in the competition. That means top 30 in the world up against guys you could be in the Olympics vying for a medal,” says Winter.
But, when it comes to Poland Winter definitely has goals of doing well in the standings.
At the Poland event, the 20-year-old will be going up against other competitors 23 years of age or younger and believes he has a chance at finishing in the top 10 or 15 in his events.
“If you finish top 20 in any of these races that means a spot on the national team automatically,” says Winter.
Does that mean a chance of competing in Vancouver two years from now.
“It could.”
The step up onto the world stage is almost just as exciting for Winter as is the level of competition he’s taking part in. His selection means he’s caught the attention of Canada’s bigwigs of cross-country skiing.
“It’s almost hard to describe,” said Winter of his selection. “These are the people who select the national team and they know who I am.”
Jesse has been a member of the National Team Development Centre in Thunderbay for two years now and this is his first year racing at the senior (open) level.
“If you had asked me in August if I had a chance of qualifying for the National Team, I would have said you were nuts,” said Winter.
The Alberta World Cup runs from Jan. 22 –until Jan. 26. Winter flies out the next day for Poland preparing for the Under 23 World Championships that run from Feb. 4 until Feb 10.
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