Canada’s Top Cross-Country Ski Athletes To Stay on Track at Home Until New Year

After weighing the risks associated with international travel as numbers of COVID-19 continue to increase globally, Nordiq Canada has decided not to send a team of cross-country ski athletes to the season-opening World Cup races prior to the holiday break.

Nordiq Canada is encouraging all high-performance athletes to “Do Local” between now and the holiday season – train at home, and compete locally if it is deemed safe to do so by provincial government and health officials – in an effort to do our part to help lower the curve while keeping our sport, and Canada going.

COVID-19 has forced us all to adapt, to be innovative and adjust to a new way of doing things. Our number one focus at this time is to support all of Canada’s cross-country ski athletes in their continued development by providing safe training and competitive race opportunities in their home regions across the country while continuing to follow the direction of government and health officials.

Given this, Nordiq Canada along with its Divisions, clubs, and coaches will continue to find creative and innovative ways to help athletes continue to train safely at home while respecting social distancing guidance until it is safe to return to national and international competitions.

COVID-19 is the most challenging competitor we have faced as a sport organization which forces continual adjustments to our performance plans. Our focus over the next two months will shift to World Championship Trials, scheduled for January 7-10 in Whistler. We will begin to finalize contingency plans for naming World Championship Teams in 2021 if we are not permitted to return to the start line in Whistler. We will also establish additional changes required to selection criteria depending on safe race opportunities available to us.

At this time, it is important to remember the pandemic has not run its course, and all athletes and coaches should continue to follow the guidelines provided by Health Canada and your provincial chief medical officers in order to ensure that we can all resume regular activity in a safe manner together. Nordiq Canada also has resources to support the entire cross-country skiing community in staying healthy at https://covid.nordiqcanada.ca

Please know, we are committed to providing the community with the most up-to-date information as we have it to allow all to make timely decisions and adjustments to your training and competition plans. We will continue to update the community as more information becomes available.