Peter Shokeir | [email protected]
Eleven teams and one soloist competed in five different sports during the Jasper Winter Pentathlon at Mildred Lake at the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge on Feb. 5.
Organized by the ACFA Régionale de Jasper, the pentathlon featured biking, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, skating and running in that order.
“We’re super excited to be finally able to have our pentathlon after being on hold for two years, so thank you all for being here,” said Caroline Roy with the ACFA during opening remarks.
In 2010, the federal government awarded grants to promote the spirit of the Winter Olympics.
The ACFA Régionale de Jasper and École Desrochers received one of the grants, resulting in the creation of the Jasper Winter Pentathlon.
“This is officially the 10th annual Pentathlon, because we had to cancel two so far, so it’s kind of like a milestone for us, so we’re happy to be celebrating this with all of you,” Roy said.
Over the years, the pentathlon has had participants as young as eight and as old as 70, and it is ultimately meant to be flexible, inclusive and non-competitive.
Around 100 participants took part in the pentathlon this year, with teams wearing costumes.
Roy added that this year’s pentathlon had some of the nicest weather in the past 12 years.
The biking was seven kilometres with the trail flat packed all week, although the first 100 metres of the trail had snow drifts, which required the starting line to be moved ahead.
The cross-country skiing course was not a complete loop and was instead a “light-bulb” loop that had two tracks running alongside each other and needed to be run three times.
The third event was snowshoeing, which followed along the skiing course, except this only required two laps.
The final two events were skating along the groomed rink on Mildred Lake, followed by running.
Friends of Jasper National Park supported the event by using its Snowdog to groom 15 kilometres of trails.
Fairmont worked on the ice and also the course for cross-country skiing and snowshoeing.
List of winners
- Best Team Costume: Lucky Charms
- Best Team Spirit: Team Ninja
- Fastest Team: Official Katy Poirier Fan Club (1:50:31)
- Female Soloist: Katy Poirier (2:52:51)
