Part 1: A Yukon cross-country legend—Dahria Beatty—ready for retirement
Dahria Beatty is ready for retirement.
What’s Up Yukon spoke to the Whitehorse cross-country legend, recently, after she held a cross-country workshop at Mount McIntyre. Beatty explained why she decided to retire now.
“Take it a step all the way back to just before the 2022 Olympics in Beijing. I always knew that I was going to do a second Olympic cycle, after 2018, focused on the 2022 Olympics. There was a lot that I wanted to still try to accomplish.”
She originally wanted to retire after the Beijing Olympics.
But having seen other teammates retire after an Olympic year—and that pressure of my Olympic year and then going from that to not having your main identity be associated with sport anymore—it didn’t seem like something that super easy or that I necessarily wanted to do. So I made the decision that I wanted to ski one year after the Olympics and have a season where I had the opportunity to say goodbye to all the places I was racing.”
One of those places was Switzerland, where she raced every year for eight years. Beatty said she thought, This is my last race here. This is my last training camp with the team.
Beatty said, “[I] wanted to be able to have those moments in a season where every thought was not trying to make the Olympics, perform at the Olympics. Have a farewell season where I’m still working to perform as well as I can, but it’s a slightly different pressure.
“Because, if we’re being honest, cross-country skiing is not a super-popular sport in North America, compared to Europe, and most people pay attention [to their] Olympic year, which is awesome. It gives you a lot of exposure that you wouldn’t get in another year, but it also adds that pressure. So I made that decision back in 2022 (that after the 2023 season, I was going to stop racing), and so it gave me a lot of time to prepare for it and to prepare for what I was going to do next.”
Beatty said she put in 11 years of full-time dedication to skiing after she graduated from high school.
“I felt like I had the opportunity to give it my best shot at every level. I got to go to the Olympics twice and try to perform to [the] best of [my] ability. World Championships three times. I raced ninety-five world cups, individual starts and countless team events. I felt like I had done everything I could to be the best version of my athlete’s self, and continuing wouldn’t necessarily change any results in the future. I had given it everything, so at some point you kind of have to decide.
“And for me it felt like the right time where I had given one-hundred-and-ten per cent to the sport for so long. I had loved every moment of it. And I didn’t want it to start feeling like I was resenting having to commit fully to the sport, first, before the rest of my life. So it was a perfect transition, really.”
Last year, Beatty had an opportunity to do the Tour de Ski, the seven-day stage race in Central Europe—similar to the Tour de France, which is part of the World Cup.
“That was that final ‘box’ on my checklist of things I wanted to do in my career. I was able to do that. And then, so, retiring felt like the perfect time and I got engaged last year; and so, like, transitioning into a new section of life as well and looking at what could be next. Not spending my entire winter in Europe has been nice, too.”
Needless to say, Beatty has a few achievements in her career that stand out. One of those is Ski Tour Canada, in 2016, which went to Quebec City; to Gatineau, Quebec; and to Canmore, Alberta.
“In the Canmore Classic Sprint, I placed fifteenth. It was my first-ever time getting into the top thirty, which gives you World Cup points. And my parents were there. Many of my friends were there. It was kind of a breakthrough moment in my career. And to do it at my second home, Canmore, where I trained out of—where the national team is based out of … It was an extremely special moment.”
Another such moment was placing 18th in the 2022 Beijing Olympics in the 10-kilometre Individual Classic. Beatty said, “It was not the race I was targeting going into the games, at all …. I knew I had a really good race, but I also wasn’t sure what it would result in. It was just one of those races where I was so happy with how I skied, every portion of the course.
“I executed on my plan. I was really able to push as hard as I could in the sections I wanted to, and I was super happy with how I raced. There’s not that many races where you finish, like, “There’s not much I could have done better if I redid it—and that was one of those races, and to have one of those at the Olympics was really cool.”
The third highlight was a 30-kilometre race in the Engadin Valley, in Switzerland, where she matched her career-best World Cup result of 15th.. She was in a second group that caught up to the first group—a rarity for Beatty. She said it was so exciting to be that close to the podium.
“I just loved it. It was just so much fun. I was having fun while also in extreme pain the whole time.”
As for her favourite memories, Beatty has a few of those, too. One of those was from the 2018 Olympics, in South Korea, where she skied with Emily Nishikawa, who’s also from Whitehorse.
“That was such a cool memory. Representing Canada obviously in a two-person team event, very cool. But then for both of us being from Whitehorse, from the same club, it was so cool. The support we got from back home … and everyone was cheering for Canada, but they were also cheering for the club and the territory.
“Our bibs from that race are hanging up in the ski chalet. It was such a cool moment to have it tied back so closely to where it all started at the highest level of sport. So that was an amazing, amazing memory and definitely something I feel very lucky to have been a part of.”
Beatty said some of the other moments aren’t even necessarily race moments.
“They’re those training camps or those times in-between races, like spending Christmas in Europe with my teammates because we’re preparing for a race, and that family that you create with your teammates because you do spend so much time and travel together. Bringing all the Christmas traditions from everyone’s different family together, as you’re spending Christmas in Switzerland, thousands of kilometres away from your own family.”
Beatty also treasures the friendships she’s made along the way, including with athletes from other countries.
“I’ve made a network of friends that spans the globe, which is really cool.”Note: In Part 2, in the next issue of What’s Up Yukon, Beatty will talk about her legacy, including being a role model for young up-and-coming Yukon skiers, as well as about the influences on her career and what’s coming up in the next chapter of her life.
