Cultus Lake/Calgary — In front of a raucous, flag waving and cowbell ringing crowd, Canadians took over the podium at the FIS Ski Cross World Cup races at the Craigleith Ski Club in Collingwood (ONT) today taking four of the six steps on the box. This is the second time this season that Canada has had four athletes on a ski cross podium on the same day.
In the men’s race, Reece Howden (Chilliwack, BC), winner of yesterday’s race, took second today, while Kevin Drury (Toronto, ON) repeated yesterday’s third place result. In the women’s race, Courtney Hoffos (Windermere, BC) raced to second while Abby McEwen (Edmonton, AB) claimed her first career podium with a third-place finish.
Saturday was Howden’s third podium in four races at Craigleith, the 29th podium of his career and the result moves him to 12 points out of top spot in the season standings.
“Today was really great. Everybody did so well,” said a pleased Howden. “Seeing these two women on the podium was awesome and shoutout to Gavin Rowell who skied really fast and battled all day coming back strong from a difficult result in yesterday’s race.”
These back-to-back third place finishes give Drury 18 career podiums and moves him into sixth in the season standings.
“I’m note sure what happened today,” said a laughing Drury. “It was like Reece and I switched places, somehow out of nowhere my starts were fast and there was Reece making all the passes. When I heard that the women were second and third, I was fired-up for our finals and what do you know, Reece and I also went second and third.”
