Derek Deuling, 19, of Whitehorse, is one of 55 up-and-coming Canadian athletes to receive a Fuelling Athletes and Coaching Excellence (FACE™) Program grant.

The program supports up-and-coming athletes striving to represent Canada at the Olympic or Paralympic Games, who don’t yet qualify for full government funding. Recipients are selected based on potential. The funding is courtesy of Petro-Canada.

The athletes and their coaches are awarded $10,000 ($5,000 directly to the athlete and $5,000 to their coach) to help with equipment and travel expenses.

Deuling is a nordic skier who specializes in the 10 km. “Classic 10 k, I really like that race. It’s really fun.

“I race everything from a 1.2 kilometre sprint in either Classic or Skate up to a 50 kilometre Classic or Skate.”

In Classic, the skis move parallel along the track. Freestyle (skate) has more of a resemblance to speed skating.

Deuling says he races more 50 km events as his age goes up. It takes just over two hours for him to run a 50 km race on a fast course.

He says he feels honoured to be named a recipient.

“It’s an honour. It feels really good to know that people are supporting you and got your back. It makes me want to race faster and just keep training harder and it’s really, really motivating just to have that support.”

The funding from the program will be used to help Deuling pay for training, and getting to and entering events.

“It’ll be able to provide me with … being able to train with the World Cup level athletes. It’ll help me to have training camps say in Canmore (Alberta). It’ll help me … be able to get to races. And just be able to surround myself with those high-caliber athletes, which will just greatly boost my level of motivation, and just kind of wanting it more. Just to be around those people is going to be a huge huge bonus for me.

“It’ll mean I can just totally focus on racing and having the best wax and wax techs, so I can perform my best.”

Deuling explains how he got to this point in his nordic skiing career.

“I’ve been skiing with the Cross Country Yukon team, just been putting in a lot of hours over the summer, and this last year I started skiing for the University of Alaska, Anchorage (UAA). I think just putting in hours, and just loving to go push your body to the max, I think it’s really fun in a kind of dumb way … it’s just pushing all you got whenever you can.”

As for the criteria for the funding, Deuling had some solid results in a variety of venues, including in Lausanne, Switzerland.

“Canadian nationals (in 2019), and youth Olympic games – so they looked at results from over in Switzerland, which were really fun to race against international athletes, and then a few in the U.S. – U.S. nationals, back in Craftsbury (Outdoor Center in Vermont). On the application you fill out a few, send the results in, and those are mostly the races that I used there.”

Deuling did pretty well in the Canadian Nationals, finishing 2nd Aggregate two years in a row. “I won a race in Nakkertok (a nordic ski club in Quebec), which I felt really good about, and that was one of my goals, so that felt really good to meet that, and then a few podiums also, which are really motivating, just to continue on to push for that top spot.”

“Switzerland was amazing. It was my first international race, and I met a lot of really cool people, and … it was a really neat experience to race against international athletes … there was people there from Norway, which is the powerhouse of international skiing, all the way to New Zealand. It was such a variety that it was really cool to race against them, to see that there’s people around the world doing the same thing as you, and they’re all just pushing, just giving it, and loving it – it’s a really really cool experience.

“I felt pretty good about my races. I got 18th, and as a first kind of outside-Canada race, I was pretty happy with that, and it leaves room for improvement, so I’m lookin’ forward to being able to prove myself again.”

The races in Switzerland in January 2020 were junior level races.

There was a ski cross, in which there’s jumps, slalom and moguls, which Deuling says was really fun and a great warmup race. Then there was a sprint, which Deuling says was awesome. The last was the 10 km Classic, which is Deuling’s favourite race, in which he was “ready to give it his all.” He finished 18th in the 10 km Classic and in the sprint.

The race order allowed Deuling to work up to his favourite race, the 10 km Classic.

“I saw the race schedule and I was just excited – big smile on my face.”

So who does he attribute his success to?

“My long-time coach, Alain Masson. He worked tirelessly to create a program … just to get kids fast and it worked really well for me. He put so much time and effort into training camps and waxing and every little detail … it was just awesome to have him as a coach all my life.”

Masson is a former Olympian cross country skier and cyclist.

“He’s a pretty accomplished athlete himself,” says Deuling. “So he knows what his athletes are going through.”

As far as who’s inspired Deuling, family finishes first, followed by his teammates a close second.

“My mom was a cross country skier, and then my whole family. My (older) brother and sister were skiing before me … so they’ve been pushing me to catch up to them since a young age. I guess all my teammates too. Being able to push against each other, and work with each other tirelessly through thick and thin. It’a not always easy getting out and having the motivation to train, and having everyone around you, just pushing you, egging you on is great.”

As a result of COVID, all the Canadian races were canceled last year.

The result was a lot of time trials, and inner-team races.

“I was fortunate enough to be able to head over to Alaska, and race for the team there (UAA). We did get a few races down in Utah … we were lucky to have those. But it really limited our racing schedule.

“Normally there would be races most weekends, and now there was time trials and smaller races, but nothing huge, nothing big to kind of get our motivation up, and kind of work towards.”

There are two categories for world junior: U20 and U23. This year will be Deuling’s last year in the U20 category, and after that, there’s a pretty big jump to the U23 level of skiing.

“So I really hope I can prove myself there, get some good results in, and get on that team, where I’ll also be representing Canada, just skiing with the fastest in the country, and working together towards that top spot.

“I assume my next goal is world junior trials. The trials and then the world juniors overseas.”

The trial races are in January (2022) in Canmore, where Deuling was able to attend a two-week training camp this summer. Deuling is working hard to get ready for the trials. He also has aspirations for the World Cup, and of course, the Olympics.

“I’d really like to get onto the World Cup team … and just have a full year over in Europe racing the Norwegians, and Finland, everyone over there. If it lines up for an Olympics, that’d be really cool to represent Canada … and have everyone cheer you on as a Canadian, would just be really really cool. So I think the Olympics would be definitely one of my top goals. To get there I think I’m lookin’ at the world junior level, to get my foot in the door and racing the fastest in the world at my age. Once I get that, workin’ towards that World Cup would be top goal.”

“I’m hoping to take this as far as I can, and see what I have in me.”