With icicles quickly forming on their beards and hair, a group of athletes competed in this year鈥檚 chilly Winter Pentathlon at Pyramid Lake, Feb. 1.
Starting the fifth annual event were the cyclists, who began their journey at the Jasper Activity Centre parking lot and completed it at the lake. Once there, they tagged off, sending their next teammate out for two laps of the lake on cross-country skis. It was the second lap that seemed to kill a number of competitors who were still recovering from the Wine in Winter and Hops and Scotch events the night before.
The next out were the snowshoers, who did one lap of the lake and then tagged off to the skaters, who did 12 laps of an oval cleared by Mountain Park Lodges.
The last event was a run on Trail 15.
Six hearty souls, including the first female soloist, did all five events. Coming in first was Jocelyn Nadeau, who created the event with his partner Caroline Roy five years ago. This was his first year competing and, of course, he chose to do it solo.
His total time was one hour, 42 minutes and 28 seconds. Following him in the solo category was Matt Staneland with a time of one hour, 48 minutes and 27 seconds and then Stephanie Neufeld, who received a medal for top female soloist after coming in with a time of two hours, one minute and 50 seconds.
The first team to cross the finish line was the Ultra Scrubs鈥攖he folks seeking to raise $60,000 for an ultrasound machine. The team, Declan Unsworth, Ryan Gardiner, Bob Covey, Patrick Vallee and Jeffrey James Keogan, finished the course in one hour, 27 minutes and 39 seconds. Team Totem came in next, followed by McKindy Manifest Destiny.
Sixteen teams competed in total and many of them came dressed to the nines. Taking the prize for the best outfits鈥攁s voted by the crowd鈥攚as Los Bandidos, a team wearing sombreros and ponchos. And the team with the best team spirit鈥攄espite their name鈥攚as DNF: Did Not Finish. Interestingly, they did finish and they didn鈥檛 even come in last.
Of special note this year were the students who competed in the competition.
There was the Super Squad, a group of high school students鈥擡merson Ostrander, Tannin Standing, Mattie Smith, Lauren Ewald and Erin Dillon鈥攚ho came in fourth with a time of one hour, 53 minutes and 18 seconds, and the Canadian Olympic Team, made up of Ecole Desrochers students in Grades 7 and 9鈥擟aleb Catto, Danya McKenzie, Clara McIsaac, Haley Duguay, Cooper Hilworth and Jesse Lazzari鈥攚ho finished in 10th place with a time of two hours, 14 minutes and four seconds.
The youngest competitors were Maya Charest and Andreane Bolduc, on the Los Bandidos team.
N. Veerman photos
