From James Cunningham - Head Coach

In case you haven't heard yet (I know, of course everyone has heard the news) Ontario won the Men's Relay and captured the Silver in the Women's Relay. We couldn't have asked for a better finish to the week. Coming into the relays we knew that we were a medal favourite in both the races, but given the dominance of the Alberta Team, it looked like a little bit of a long shot to win the Gold in either of the races. A number of the things were riding on the results of the relay races, most importantly was the race to ‘capture the flag'. Ontario was sitting in 3rd spot in the Cross Country competition and we were in striking distance of taking the overall title and gaining 20 valuable points for Team Ontario.

Before I give you the play-by-play of the races I wanted to thank the athletes and coaches for making this such a special event. The entire team conducted themselves superbly throughout the duration of the trip. Every morning when the coaches visited the Mission Office we were very proud to hear all the excellent comments from the staff about the skiers. The men's team even spent a morning helping out with the cleaning staff in the cafeteria. I also need to thank Brad and Marilyn for their help and support during the trip. This was my first time acting as head coach for a major trip or competition and I was very grateful for their unconditional support. Without any undue bragging, we certainly had the best, or equal to the best skis of any team in the competition and that is largely due to the time, effort and expertise provide by Brad and Marilyn.

So, on to the races. The women started the day with a bang as Alana powered her way to a commanding lead coming into the stadium to tag off to Alysia. Alana described her ski as almost effortless as she skied away from Thursday's race winner. Alysia, Mallory and Natasha put in great efforts to maintain our 2nd place position. The men's race was possibly one of the most amazing races I have ever witnessed. The team were all very evenly matched and coming into the stadium for the first lap of the first leg, eight team were skiing together. By the end of the first leg, Mark placed us in a solid 6th position within sight of the main pack of racers. Len posted the 3rd fastest lap time to bring us up into 5th place and even closer to the lead. This is when the race got interesting. Gavin was on a mission from the very beginning and rapidly started to pick off skiers the lay in his way. Coming in from the first lap he had already caught two skiers and was skiing in 3rd place. By the end of his leg of the relay, Gavin had opened a 20m gap on 2nd, posting the fastest lap time of the day by 10sec over yesterday's gold medal winner and over a minute up on the Alberta skier who started the lap in first. Jesse was our anchor for the day and he was being chased by Tyson Smith of Alberta, a two time Gold medallist from biathlon in the previous week. The two skied together until the final 500m of the race when Jesse surged ahead and pushed the pace. Coming back into the stadium we were all expecting a tight sprint finish, but to our delighted surprise he had opened a 20sec gap!!! Jesse showed amazing determination and guts put on a display of amazing racing to take the win. The entire team put in such a great effort and they were rewarded with the Gold medal.

Tomorrow is the final day of the Games and we have the big Closing Ceremonies and then off to the airport for the trip home. Alana Thomas was selected by the Ontario Mission Staff to be Ontario's flag bearer for the closing ceremonies. Congratulations Alana!!