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Kimberley Nordic Club hosts 575 racers for Western Championships

Western Champs gets nearly 200 more registrants than the first time the KNC hosted it in 2023.

In 2023, when the Kimberley Nordic Club (KNC) first hosted the Canada Cup Western Canadian Cross Country Ski Championships, it was the biggest event in the club's history. They were selected to host the prestigious event again in 2025 and this year's event had nearly 200 more racers, with a total of 575 and around 450 people racing per day. 

KNC general manager Daniel Childress said the event, which ran from Jan. 31 to Feb. 2, featured clubs from as far away as Winnipeg, Quebec, the Yukon and Montana. They also hosted the Taiwan Ski Team this year. 

"For some of those kids it was their first time on snow, all of their experience is on roller skis," Childress said. 

For it being their first time on snow, conditions really couldn't have been better. 

"It’s been exciting, we’ve had fresh snow every night and a lot of these teams, especially coming from Alberta, they don’t have much snow where they are right now, so they’re really excited to see how much snow we have," Childress said. "We’re a little bit spoiled here, because we get a lot of snow, so we were concerned that we didn’t have enough, but coming from these other teams, they were pretty happy." 

An event of this size necessitated a massive force of volunteers to ensure it ran smoothly, and the club made it happen. 

"We did a great job this year — our volunteer coordinator Anna she did a great job going around the community and finding people to help out," Childress said. "We had about 350 total volunteer shifts that we filled, so a little bit over 100 per day." 

KNC had plenty of representation in the races themselves, including Team Canada athlete Raleigh Tarte, who took second place in the Saturday Sprint Heats Classic. 

KNC's Koby Clarke also took second in the U18 Men division on Saturday, as did Tara Szkorupa in the Masters 1 Women division in the Sunday Mass Start Classic. Dan Clarke finished in fourth on Sunday in the Masters 2 Men division. 

Full race results can be found at this link kimberleynordic.org/westerns-2025

Childress said he was very happy with the showing from KNC, particularly with its younger members. 

"We’re really excited to see that our numbers at the club keep growing, we’re up to about 50 racers that are competing this weekend, including about 35 Jackrabbit-aged kids," he said. "So right now we have a small group of older kids that are racing, but just looking at the trends it looks like in a few years there’s going to be a lot more kids that are racing competitively." 

Hosting an event of this calibre, for the second time in three seasons, in addition to their other events and programming they have going on this year, highlights the success off the club and the sport of Nordic Skiing in Kimberley. 

"That’s pretty exciting for us and for us as a small community, hosting an event this size is pretty exciting," Childress said. "I’m sure every door in town was booked and Cranbrook as well." 

Coming up, on Feb. 9 the club has the Women’s Nordic Biathlon Blitz, an event just for women who are interested in trying out the sport of biathlon. Then they will have their annual Nordic Fest on March 9, and their second annual Brew-Ski event is also in the works. 

Watch their website and social media channels for updates on all their upcoming events and programming. 

 



About the Author: Paul Rodgers

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