THE CANADIAN PRESS
CANMORE, Alta — Olympic gold medallist Chandra Crawford has delayed the start of her cross-country racing season due to a sore ankle.
The 25-year-old from Canmore, Alta., had planned to race in Saturday’s World Cup sprint in Kuusamo, Finland. However, pain in her ankle flared up during a recent training camp at Silverstar Resort in B.C.
"I enjoyed a few precious hours of skiing before the pain on my ankle bone made it impossible to wear a ski boot at all," Crawford said on her website.
Hard running on Canmore’s rolling trails strained a tendon that runs from the bottom of her foot over her ankle, she said.
"I have the classiest team of support people around me and am optimistic that it will settle down in time for racing if I don’t do anything to aggravate it," Crawford said.
She won an Olympic gold medal in the sprint at the 2006 Olympics in Turin, Italy. That was a skate-ski race and Saturday’s sprint is a classic event.
Skiis move parallel to one another in classic, which requires more finesse and less raw power to maintain speed than in skate skiing.
Crawford’s favourite is skate ski, which is an ice-skating motion with the legs. She is trying to improve her classic style because the Olympic women’s sprint Feb. 17, 2010, in the Callahan Valley near Whistler, B.C., will be a classic race.
The relay five days later will be a skate-ski race.