| Veteran Athletes Headline National Cros-Country Ski Program |
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Olympic, Paralympic medallists set to lead Canadian Nordic squad targeting podium results. CANMORE, Alberta (September 24, 2009) Canada's cross-country ski athletes are sprinting into the highly anticipated Olympic and Paralympic season replete with veteran leadership and podium potential. On the heels of the team's first official training session at the Canmore Nordic Centre, Cross Country Canada kicked off the 2009-2010 season by unveiling a stellar lineup of twelve athletes that will don the maple leaf at World Cup and Para-Nordic World Cup competitions around the world. "We have assembled a unique and experienced group of athletes that have made huge progress, and have demonstrated the ability that Canada is now ready to contend with the best athletes in our sport," said Tom Holland, director of high-performance, Cross Country Canada, who added that ten of the twelve athletes named to the senior squads have won medals at the World Cup and Para-Nordic World Cup levels. "For many of our athletes, Torino was their first trip to the Olympics and Paralympics. Building on that experience, we have celebrated many successes over the last four years, but will continue to follow the plan of peaking in Whistler this February." Three-time Olympian, Sara Renner of Canmore, Alberta, and multiple World Cup medallist, Devon Kershaw, of Sudbury, Ontario, will lead the charge for the Canadian contingent on the World Cup. Renner, who began her international medal haul in 2005 when she finished third in the sprint race to become the first Canadian to reach the podium at the World Championships. The Olympic silver medallist has also captured four World Cup medals throughout her fourteen-year career. Renner will be joined on the women's team by Olympic gold medallist and fellow Canmore native, Chandra Crawford, on the World Cup circuit, along with rising young star Perianne Jones, of Almonte, Ontario. Crawford is ready to hit the start line this season after taking most of last year off to recover from injury, while the twenty-four-year-old Jones will look to feed off the momentum gained from her strongest international result last year when she teamed up with Renner to finish sixth in the World Championship team sprint. Devon Kershaw will lead the strongest men's team that Canada has ever assembled for the World Cup. Kershaw, who made his Olympic debut in Torino, has since collected three World Cup medals while evolving into one of the most consistent skiers in all disciplines on the international circuit. Kershaw will be joined by twenty-nine-year-old Ivan Babikov, of Canmore, who captured a gold medal in the final stage of the Tour de Ski last season. George Grey, twenty-eight, of Rossland, British Columbia, and twenty-one-year-old Alex Harvey, of St-Ferréol-les-Neiges, Quebec, who teamed up to shock the world by finishing third in the team sprint at the World Cup at Whistler Olympic Park in January 2009, round out the men's contingent. Harvey, who captured three Junior World Championship medals in his career, also claimed the bronze medal position on the World Cup podium in the men's fifty-kilometre race in Trondheim, Norway to complete his rookie season on the top cross-country skiing circuit in the world. "This is truly one of the most talented World Cup teams in our history, which is a testament to the continued strength and growth of our national program," said Tom Holland. "Through the generous support and leadership of Own the Podium, along with our corporate partners, we can now deliver the world-leading resources our athletes need to gain a competitive advantage, and better prepare to reach our goal of regularly competing for the podium with the leading nations in our sport." The Para-Nordic World Cup Team has also benefited from additional resources, which has resulted in Canada developing one of the strongest teams in the world. Brian McKeever, along with his guide and brother Robin, who have won nearly everything on the table in Para-Nordic sport including seven Parlaympic medals, will lead the team of five athletes. Legally blind with Stargardt's disease, which is a form of macular degeneration that affects central vision, Brian McKeever is continuing his quest to become the first winter-sport athlete to compete at both the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in 2010. If he meets his goal, it will make him only the second athlete ever in the history of the Olympic and Paralympic Games to accomplish the feat. Three years ago, Brian finished twenty-first in an able-bodied men's fifteen-kilometre skate-ski race at the World Championships.
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