Canmore World Cup Coverage

Special to CrossCountrySkier.com

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Canmore Gears Up for Cross Country World Cup

Photos and text by Matt Muir

If you build it, they will come…twice. The Canadian Rocky Mountain town of Canmore, Alberta, is a mining town gone bust in the late ‘70s and revived by the 1988 Calgary Olympics. Canmore is just days away from hosting its second cross country World Cup in as many years. 

The renovated Canmore trails (see a larger version)

In December 2005, a collaborative effort by Cross Country Canada, the province of Alberta and the town of Canmore culminated in the $23 million renovation of the 1988 Olympic legacy Canmore Nordic Centre. Since then, Canmore has also upgraded its day lodge.

After hosting three days of World Cup racing on the newly redesigned trails right after the renovation, Canmore will host four days of World Cup racing in the coming week.

The schedule is a full one. Tuesday, January 22, sees the women’s 15k and men’s 30k pursuits. The next day includes women’s men’s classic sprints. After a rest day on Thursday, the pattern repeats itself with a distance race on Friday in the form of an interval start 10k free for the women and interval start 15k free for the men. The racing concludes on Saturday with men’s and women’s freestyle sprints.

All events will take place on the competition trails at the Canmore Nordic Centre. Altogether, Canmore offers 70 kilometers of skiing with a public waxing room and café in the lodge. The competition trails, though, are something other than enjoyable.

The multi-million dollar facelift brought the Canmore racing trails into line with modern competition design with an eye toward spectator friendliness and difficulty.

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