Canada's best cross-country skiers hit the trails at Lappe Ski Centre

Some of Canada's best cross-country skiers are hitting the trails at the Lappe Ski Centre over the coming days, hoping to earn a chance to represent the country at some upcoming international competitions.

The Lappe Ski Centre is hosting both the 2025 Nordiq Canada Selection Trials, with spots on Team Canada for the World Juniors, World Under-23 Championships, and World Ski Championships, all of which will take place in Europe.

"It's huge for them," said Stephanie Marler, the event's chief of competition. "They've been preparing for years for this."

"Those athletes that are hoping to go to Europe to represent Canada have been on their training plan since May of this year focused on this event," she said. "So they've had some races in advance of this, but they've been sort of more preparatory races. But this is the big deal for for all the athletes that are here."

Also taking place at Lappe on the weekend is the second Ontario Cup competition of the season, which has brought in the province's top skiers.

"It's really exciting for the young athletes that will be participating in that event to be able to be skiing at the same time on the same trails as some of the top athletes in Canada," Marler said.

The event got underway on Tuesday, with skiers getting two days of training in before the competition began.

"Because of the low snow, we're on a pretty short, difficult course, so they're out there trying to get their legs under them to figure out what that's going to look like," Marler said. "Thursday at noon, we run the first of the qualifying rounds for the Nordiq Canada Selection Trials."

"It's a sprint classic Sprint event, so we have 200 athletes that will go in the first qualifier and then 30 athletes, men and 30 women, will advance into the heats."

"The heats are really exciting to watch, so if anybody wants to come out and watch, Thursday at (2 p.m.) is a great time to be out here."

The trails run from Jan. 2-6, with training starting earlier in the week; a full schedule is available online.

One of the athletes competing is 19-year-old Clara Hegan, who's from Ottawa but trains with the National Team Development Centre in Thunder Bay.

"I grew up skiing with my family," Hegan said. "My dad was also a ski racer, so I guess I kind of followed in his footsteps."

"Really, I just love being outside," she said. "I love just like training with my friends and working towards a goal, I guess. But really it's the community that that's kept me here."