Sorry for the delay in the blog post; the internet at our hotel has been down for a couple of days. We arrived in Hinterzarten, Germany a week ago to race in the World Junior Championships. Hinterzarten is a really nice small town in the Black Forest. The venue is about a half an hour drive up a steep road in the mountains. I had my first race Monday morning, the 1200 meter skate sprint. The course had two significant hills: the first one is really steep and the second is less steep and pretty wide, a low enough grade to V2. I had a decent qualifier and placed 22nd, but definitely felt like I had a lot left to push it harder in the rounds. My qualifying time was two seconds back from tenth and about six seconds back from first.
The heats started two hours later, enough time to refuel and get a little bit of rest before starting the rounds. I was in the fourth heat with 5 other guys, two of them being top Norwegians. I had the far-left starting lane and the course had a right-hand corner 100m out of the start into the first hill. So I ended up in 5th place going up the first hill. At the second hill I made a move up into third place. After the second hill there is a pretty big downhill and I was gaining on the second place guy so I went for the pass on the left and it was a right hand turn, I got boxed out and two people passed me on the right. From there on I skied in fifth place to finish a tenth of a second behind the fourth place person, and maybe a second behind the first. My heat ended up being the fastest so all four guys in front of me moved on, the third and fourth guy as lucky losers. I skied that heat 6 seconds faster then my qualifier. I was really happy about how good I felt out there, but was disappointed I didn't move on to the semifinals. I know I was feeling fast enough to ski in the top ten, It is a really tight group of guys and I am excited to get the chance to race some of them again in the OPA Cups next month. More later!
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