Sitting in the media room three days before her first race, cross-country skier Chandra Crawford struggled to speak positively. The bubbly Olympic gold medalist had yet to break the top 30 this season and media hounds needed to know if she planned on ending that streak in front of her friends and family.
Crawford paused, looked out the window, and paused again, at a loss for words.
On race day, though, that anxiety vanished. Crawford finished sixth in the Alberta World Cup women’s sprints at the Canmore Nordic Centre on Saturday (Dec. 15).
“It feels good to make the top 30 for the first time this year. I’m really grateful to race at home, because I kinda needed a boost, eh? Kinda needed a boost,” Crawford said.
Crawford was strong all day, qualifying with the third fastest time in the morning, much to the pleasure of the boisterous hometown crowd. Her skis were blistering fast and her patented finishing kick was in fine form.
“Whoo! It’s a good feeling. It’s my town. I don’t feel much pressure, other than from myself as I want to do well so badly. I only slept three hours last night; my heart was just pounding all night. It shows how much I care and how much I wanted to throw down such a good race.”
She finished third in her quarterfinal heat, but made it through as the lucky loser, the fastest third place finisher in the quarterfinals. Then in the semi-finals, she was fourth, but again was pushed through as the lucky loser in a great sprint.
“Whoo! That was wild! But it’s also a piece of never giving up. It’s something I always talk about in Fast and Female. There’s the point even when the field has skied away, I still have to ski my guts out and lunge across the finish because it counts. It all counts,” Crawford said.
In the final, Crawford hung with the other racers as long as she could, but faded on the home stretch to finish sixth.
“I don’t remember the last time I was hit with such a wall of nervousness. I wanted to do the downhill better. I wanted to try to figure out how to navigate the drafting and slingshots better,” Crawford said.
Exuding confidence was key to her success, said Crawford, who tried her best to stay positive all weekend.
“I’m getting my mojo back. I haven’t been top-30 all year,” Crawford said. “It’s hard to create belief when you don’t have any concrete science. But it has to come from somewhere. I had to look to things going well. I made a commitment to be positive the whole weekend, no matter what. But it’s not easy.”
She got a big boost from her sister Rosanna Crawford, who had a personal best 12th place finish in her biathlon World Cup race on Dec. 12. Prior to last week, Rosanna’s personal best World Cup finish was 59th.
“Zana fired me up,” Crawford said. “She really inspired me. She talked about not caring about results.”
Crawford wasn’t the only Canadian to have a strong day. Perianne Jones also made it through to the semi-finals.
“I didn’t have enough juice to stay with those girls and my legs were full of lactic acid,” Jones said. “I’m really happy to be in the top 12, it’s a huge improvement over last weekend.”
Dasha Gaiazova also made it through to the heats, qualifying in 29th position and finishing fourth in her heat. Tearful at the finish, she said the team is trying extremely hard, but it’s frustrating when the results don’t follow.
Maiken Caspersen Falla of Norway won the race, followed by American Kikkan Randall and Celine Brun-Lie of Norway.
