Nunavik youth complete grueling bicycle rally

Here’s the Nunavik team poster showing the cyclists who recently completed the 1,000-kilometre, 60-hour “Grand Défi Pierre Lavoie” bicycle rally. From left to right: Sammy Gordon of Aupaluk, Joé Juneau, two-time Olympic medalist, former NHL hockey player and founder of the Nunavik Youth Hockey Development Program, four-time Olympic medalist and speedskater Gaétan Boucher, Benoît Lamarche, a former Olympic speed skater who is now a Laval university researcher, and Kyle Aitchison of Kuujjuaq. (POSTER PHOTO BY SIMONE LEMIEUX)

Quebec’s health minister Yves Bolduc greeted Sammy Gordon June 17 when the Nunavik team in the Défi Pierre Lavoie rally pulled into Quebec City. (PHOTO BY CLAUDE VALLIERES)

Two students from Kuujjuaq’s Jaanimmarik School are relaxing back home now, after completing a grueling bicycle rally earlier this month — and becoming the first teenagers to complete the 60-hour, 1,000-kilometre course.

Sammy Gordon, 17, of Aupaluk, and Kyle Aitchison, 16, sped off June 17 from the starting line of Quebec’s “Grand Défi Pierre Lavoie” bicycle rally.

The two were part of a five-person, Olympic-studded Nunavik team, whose members included, Benoît Lamarche, a former Olympic speed skater who is now a Laval university researcher, four-time Olympic medalist and speedskater Gaétan Boucher, and Joé Juneau, also a two-time Olympic medalist and former NHL hockey player.

Both Gordon and Aitchison, members of Nunavik’s midget select hockey team, are involved with the Nunavik Youth Hockey Development Program.

That’s the program spearheaded by Juneau five years ago to encourage youth in Nunavik to embrace hockey, academics and good behaviour.

“With the values promoted by the Nunavik Youth Hockey Development Program, perseverance and effort, we thought it would be interesting to form a Nunavik team to participate in the rally,” said Claude Vallières, a longtime principal in Nunavik, now an advisor to the Makivik Corp.-sponsored hockey program.

With Makivik’s backing, Juneau formed a team, encouraging the two teenagers to participate and asking the two other ex-Olympians to join in.

While at a midget hockey tournament in Quebec, Gordon and Aitchison underwent a battery of physical tests to see if they were in good enough shape to compete. The results of those tests: excellent.

In Kuujjuaq, physiotherapist Judith Maynard supervised their six-month-long training, along with Benoît Côté from the Nunavik hockey program.

With the support of the Kativik School Board and their parents, school and training became the main focus for Gordon and Aitchison, Vallières said.

This year’s rally, founded by Pierre Lavoie to raise consciousness about lactic acidosis, a rare hereditary illness found in Quebec’s Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean region, saw 180 teams of five cyclists travel more than 1,000 in 60 hours.

The Nunavik team left June 17 from La Baie-Laterrière, cycling in legs between 40 km and more than 100 km long.

The team arrived June 19 at the finish line at the La Ronde amusement park in Montreal.

From beginning to end, the team logged a total of 1,126 km, at an average speed of 27.8 km an hour.

During the rally, a group called Tukisivallirutitsanut Parnaitiit followed the Nunavik team to make a film, which will be shown to Nunavik schools.

Sammy Gordon, 17, of Aupaluk, a Secondary Three student at Kuujjuaq’s Jaanimmarik School, speeds off earlier this month from the starting line of Quebec’s 1,000-kilometre-long Grand Défi Pierre Lavoie bicycle race, which teams complete in 60 hours. Gordon and his classmate, Kyle Aitchison, 16, of Kuujjuaq, were members of a five-person, Olympic-studded team, which included, to the left of Gordon, Pierre Lavoie (Ironman), to the right, Gaétan Boucher (speedskater) and Joé Juneau, not shown here. (PHOTO BY CLAUDE VALLIERES)