Welcome back to Part 3 of the 2015 edition of the NDC Roster series. I think I’m starting to run out of steam for these, I haven’t built up enough blogging base to be turning out so many posts in so early in the season. Hopefully I don’t over-blog…

Part 1) NDC Roster: Alannah, Andy, Angus
Part 2) NDC Roster: Bob, Dave, Evan
Part 3) NDC Roster: Julian, Katherine, Mia, Mike
Part 4) NDC Roster: Sadie, Sam, Scott

Julian Smith

Julian is now a second year junior and returns to the NDC after a breakthrough season where he qualified for the World Junior Championships in Kazakstan, took silver in the classic sprint at Nationals, and qualified for the Junior National Team. Undoubtably one of the most focussed and determined athletes on the team, Julian is also a big team player and a bit of a social butterfly. Julian works at a stone-fired pizzeria and is often seen sporting tilley hats while walking on slack lines catching frisbees. Next season, Julian aspires to juggle chainsaws while unicycling on a slackline, and to punch a ticket for all events to the World Junior Championships next winter.

Katherine Stewart-Jones

Katherine is new to the NDC family this year, and also a new addition to the Senior National team. A member of Nakkertok (on the Quebec side), she has competed at the World Junior Championships three times and has had consistently impressive international results, earning a total of three individual top 20 results – most notably her 14th place finish in the Skiathlon this year in Kazakhstan. Katherine also collected three individual silver and a team relay gold for Quebec at the Canada Winter Games last winter. This year, Katherine is motivated to work with the new team and continue with her strong international results at the World U23 Championships or Canadian World Cups.

Mia Serratore

So Mia wasn’t super into the photoshoot, and this isn’t a great photo. She has a good Instagram though, if you want to check that out… Anyway, Mia is coming off a transition year where she spent the summer and previous academic year enlisted in the Armed Forces. A Thunder Bay local, Beyonce’s biggest fan, and member of Big Thunder Nordic, she had podium finishes as a junior at Whistler Nationals and now comes to the NDC ready to refocus on skiing and is gearing up to qualify for the World Junior Championships in Romania this winter.

Michael Somppi

Michael, Mike, Somppi… I’m still not entirely sure what he likes to go by, but they all seem to work nonetheless. Michael returns to NDC Thunder Bay this season after spending the past few in Canmore with the AWCA and NST. Coming home after a dominant campaign on the domestic circuit, strong results in the Scandinavian Cup series, and three National titles and the overall aggregate (his season was detailed in an excellent post on his blog, definitely worth reading), this Mike’s season will have a bit more international flavour. With rights to start the first World Cup period, Somppi will be focussing his summer training to be ready to take on the world’s finest on the World Cup circuit this season.

Round three complete. Thanks again for reading, next post should be up in a few days…