Built 4 Speed 'Curse'

The Built 4 Speed ski race in Bragg Creek January 21, had to be moved to Canmore.

The event which organizers jokingly nicknamed 'Built 4 Speed Curse' has had challenges when it comes to the weather, over the past four years.

XC Bragg Creek, Head Coach, Flora Giesbrecht says even when conditions are perfect a few days ahead, they are at Mother Nature's mercy.

"The conditions last Monday were the best they have been all year; they were beautiful, perfectly groomed. We were ready to showcase the trails and the big chinook came on Tuesday and we thought forget it we aren't going to cancel again so we quickly scrambled and secured Canmore on Thursday so we only had two days to plan and change the format.

Although modifications had to be made, the races were very successful and Giesbrecht says they ended up with double the amount of participants.

The Built 4 Speed event is targeted toward kids aged 8-13 who are new to racing wanting to compete in a non intimidating race.

"The format we had (on Saturday) was a new style to our club called King's Court. Essentially the kids race four times, the first time they race is individual starts so they get a time how long it takes them to do the course, then based on their time they are put into different groups of six and then we have wave starts. So they race around the course and depending on how they finish in different positions they move into different categories, so they keep moving, racing against different kids each time."

Many of the racers from this past weekend will go on to compete in the February 11/12, Alberta Youth Cross Country Ski Championships in West Bragg.

Giesbrecht, gives a big shout out to the Bragg Creek crew who are always able to wing it despite what is thrown at them, XC Bragg Creek, Coach Dwayne Ellis, and Jan Wittstrom of Canadian Ski Patrol...and of course the racers.

"We were really pleased with our young skiers for giving it a go."

Built 4 Speed had 64 skiers in total, and the top six medaled in the race series.