2025 FIS World Junior/U23 Championships
Bergamo-Schilpario, Italy
February 3 – 9, 2025
NEWS: Amelia Wells finished 22th in the Womens U23 sprint race! Watch upcoming races: watch.fish-ski.com
January 31st February 2 – Darfo Boario Terme, Italy
Hello from Italy!
We are staying in Darfo Boario Terme, which is a commune in Northern Italy situated in a valley surrounded by beautiful mountains. We started our first day in Italy with breakfast and then drove up to the race site in Schilpario. To get to the race site we drove up over 1000 meters up a very twisty, windy, and narrow road—not ideal if you’re prone to car sickness! Once at the race site, we did an easy ski around the sprint and distance courses to get familiar with them. For those of us from the West Coast, the weather felt all too familiar: 2°C and rainy. After skiing, we headed back to the hotel for a delicious homemade pasta lunch.
Most of the athletes took the afternoon off to rest, go grocery shopping for snacks, or catch up on homework. There are a lot of students on this trip, with 8 out of the 11 U23 athletes from Canada at university or college and many of the U20 also at university, college, or CEGEP. It is so cool to see so many people competing at the highest level of skiing while balancing school.
We wrapped up the day with another pasta dinner and a team meeting to discuss the upcoming events!
It’s another rainy day in Schilpario (hopefully the last). We started the morning with a ski session at the race site, where some athletes focused on speed work, others did intervals, and a few did some easy skiing. Afterward, we had lunch at the venue with the athletes from the other countries before making our way back down.
In the afternoon, we took a walk to a local gelateria for some delicious gelato—a must have when visiting Italy. Choosing a flavour was tough because everything looked amazing, but in the end, the Pistachio was the group’s clear favourite. After fueling with gelato, we went for a run through the town, checking out the old buildings, the church, a farm, and a nearby vineyard. The evening wrapped up with some card games and a team meeting to prepare for the next day.
Today, we had official training for the first race of the championships: the classic 1.2km sprint. The athletes racing in the sprint spent the session testing skis and doing some race prep intensity. The course is quite technical and icy, so we're hoping to stay on our feet during the race!
In the early evening, we went to the opening ceremonies, where all the teams marched about 1 kilometer down the main street of Schilpario, carrying their flags and waving to the locals. It was so nice to see so many Canadian families and parents who came to watch. It was also really cool to see athletes from all around the world—44 countries and over 450 racers in total! It’s such a special experience to be at an event like this, especially in a small town like Schilpario, which you probably wouldn’t have the chance to visit otherwise. To put it in perspective, they said the number of volunteers here is equivalent to having one person from every household in the town volunteering. Once the parade ended, we listened to speeches from the mayor, the Italian Ski Federation, and others. Afterward, we drove back to the hotel for a pasta dinner (big surprise!) and a team meeting to discuss the next day’s races.
Tomorrow, 8 U20 men and women will race, and the U23s will race the following day. From BC, Finn Redman will be racing for the U20 men, and Amelia Wells and Jasmine Drolet will be racing for the U23 women. Go Team Canada!!
By Amelia Wells (Strathcona Nordic Ski Club, Victoria)
To view the first report (#1): https://www.crosscountrybc.ca/athlete-reports-2025-fis-world-junioru23-championships
To view the second report (#2): https://www.crosscountrybc.ca/athlete-reports-photos-2025-world-junioru23-championships
To view the third report (#3): https://crosscountrybc.ca/2025-fis-world-junioru23-championships
