Podium Finishes at Canada West Short Track Championships

Publication date: 
April 1st, 2014

Tuesday, April 1, 2014 (Lethbridge, AB) - Jackson Christie and Daphne Cloutier of Yellowknife stepped onto the podium at the Canada West Short Track Championships in Lethbridge, AB this weekend.

Canada West Short Track Championships brings together the best Train-to-Train short track speed skaters in western Canada.  Skaters compete in yearly age groups (Boys 12-15, Girls 11-14). Four skaters represented NWT at the competition: Leah Thomson (Yellowknife Speed Skating Club, Girls 11), Tori Blake (Hay River Speed Skating Club, Girls 12), Daphne Cloutier (Yellowknife Speed Skating Club, Girls 13) and Jackson Christie (Inuvik Speed Skating Club, Boys 13).

Fresh off a successful Arctic Winter Games, Jackson Christie battled through heats and semi’s to achieve a place in the exciting 1500m medal final.  In a very tight race with 6 other skaters, Christie was able to grab the silver medal in a time of 2:38.706 beating out the bronze medalist from Alberta by a mere 12 hundredths of a second.  In the 400m medal final, Christie was up against a very fast field, toughing through to a bronze medal behind two Alberta skaters, but ahead of a skater from BC.

Daphne Cloutier, who brought home 4 ulus from AWG in Fairbanks, advanced steadily through the 400m heats and semi’s to the medal final.  In a very competitive field of skaters from Alberta and Saskatchewan, Cloutier was able to cross the finish line in second place, winning a silver medal for NWT.

As well as scoring many personal best times, an exciting end to the meet came for NWT when the interprovincial relay team of Tori Blake, Leah Thomson plus two girls from Manitoba skated their way to a bronze medal finish in the 2000m relay event.

Shane Clark, coach of Team NWT in Lethbridge, was very excited with the results of all his skaters. Clark commented that the growth of NWT skaters has been substantial over the course of this season and complimented local coaches Rodger Blake and Harry Scheper of the Hay River Speed Skating Club, and Paul MacDonald and the late Doug MacLeod of the Inuvik Speed Skating Club.

Canada West Short Track Championships wraps up the speed skating season for 2013-14.  The next event for skaters will be NWT Speed Skating Summer Camp in August.

For more information, please contact Jill Gilday at nwtspeedskating@gmail.com