Adam Kates thought his career was all but over and so did Canada’s national cross-country ski team.
Boy, everyone involved was wrong. Dead wrong.
Kates is the 2006 Canadian Senior Men’s Cross-Country Ski Championship overall gold medalist after a stunning comeback in Thunder Bay on the weekend.
He finished third in the 10-kilometre classic race, 15-km freestyle and sprint race. On the final day of the week-long championship, he finished fifth in the 50-km classic race, four points ahead of the overall silver medalist and well ahead of four Canadian Olympians.
A twist of irony considering the national program released the 25-year-old Sault Ste. Marie native less than a year ago.
“I was on the brink of never wanting to ski again,” Kates admitted.
In December, he failed to make World Cup standard times in one of three races and then missed the Canadian Olympic team which travelled to Turin, Italy last month.
“After the World Cup races, I did some soul searching.”
And moved.
Kates, currently a server at the Keg, made the eight-hour move to Thunder Bay to be with his steady girlfriend Amanda Holdsworth, a business major at Lakehead University.
“I still trained throughout the winter, but I kept it pretty low key,” Kates said.
He also started coaching kids and skied for himself and no one else.
“You get so caught up in trying to make a team, trying to make the points, trying to make that next trip,” Kates said. “I just got back to the purity of the sport and tried not to worry about anything.
“Most of my success came when I was young and ignorant.”
He has youth to thank, in more ways than one, for his national championship.
The weeklong event began with the relay race. Childhood friend and college roommate Brady Dunne, along with fellow Sault native Chad Yurich, teamed with Kates and the trio finished eighth.
“It was one of the most fun races I’ve had in my life and it got the week off to a great start,” Kates said.
He finished third in the 10- and 15-km races during the week before heading into Friday brought the sprint, Kates’ worst event throughout his career he was ranked 20th on the national and only once made a final. But the race also brought his biggest fans.
Kids he coached lined the track and ran alongside the Sault skier, their local hero, as he lunged to the finish line in the quarterfinal, which all but guaranteed him a medal.
“When there’s a train of 20 fans going up the hill beside you, and you see signs and streamers and hear them cheering you on, singing songs about you, that’s pretty special.”
While youth, or the recollection of such, got him the victory, it was Kates’ maturity that shined through afterward.
He holds no ill will toward toward the national program.
“People asked me if it felt good to beat some of those guys,” Kates said. “It does, but I don’t want to stick it to anyone. I’m not racing to throw it in somebody’s face, because if that’s the reason you’re racing, you’ll eventually run out of faces to throw it in.
“I just know I can still beat these guys on any given day.”
In fact, Kates went so far as to hint at an appearance at the Vancouver Winter Games in 2010.
“Skiers usually peak around age 29,” he said conservatively. “But I’m taking it one day at a time.”
