THUNDER BAY – More than 700 skiers took to the trails and tnjoyed the warm weather at Sleeping Giant Provincial Park for the 44th annual Sleeping Giant Loppet, the first one since 2020.
The skiing festival brought over athletes from all over the country, and the United States and Peter Gallagher, coordinator of the event, said the Loppet was the perfect way to celebrate the end of the cross-country skiing season.
“The response has been great, we're down a little bit in terms of the number of people that participated, but there's all kinds of reasons for that with the amount of sickness that's going around in the, in the community right now,” he said.
“But we're still thrilled about 700 participants in this year's event, and then we'll grow back up again to 8 or 900 next year.”
There were multiple events with distances for skiers of all ages, levels and abilities... including the 8 kilometre mini-loppet for families and kids, the more relaxed and scenic 35-kilometre tour, and the 50-kilometre race, which took the top athletes over 2 hours to complete.
Matt Liebsch from Orono, Minn., took first place in the 50-kilometre race with a time of 2:08:05.1 and he said he was enjoying the Canadian scenery and competition.
“The weather was beautiful and there's some pretty fast Canadians to ski with, which was awesome,” he said.
“It was a fairly fast day and I didn't know if I was going to win or not, especially when I got tired kind of in the middle of the race, I was having some cramping, but I just took my time and had a bunch of feeds gels and goo and water, and then I felt much better for the last 10k.”
Michaela Keller-Miller from Craftsbury Common, Vt., won the female 50-kilometre race with a time of 2:27:19.3 and said she was excited to try out a track she’s heard so much about.
“I've actually never been to this park before, so I heard good things,” she said. “I heard it was a fun race and I heard the trails were sweet and it was, and it was a perfect day for it, so feeling good about it.
