We are in the thick of Jr World Champs here in Nove Mesto so I thought that now would be a good time to update on what has been going on through the first few days.
We had opening ceremonies on Thursday night which included a pre opening, snowball fight with all the teams that showed up early. The Dutch started it but I am glad to say that I had one confirmed hit. I hit a Polish girl right in the torso and you can ask teammate Raleigh Goessling and he will confirm it. It was not a head shot, but that’s probably ok as one of the Norwegian’s got hit three times in the neck/face region and was not too pleased about it. For the official ceremony we walked into town square and there were actually people that came to watch, which was cool. Then we heard some inspirational words from some pretty important people, including IBU President. It was also nice that the speakers either spoke in Czech and it was translated into English or they just spoke in English so we actually knew what was going on. Then the night concluded with some awesome fireworks. I have seen some pretty good fireworks done by the pro’s on the fourth of July but these Czechs definitely know how to put on fireworks too. Also certain restrictions which one might run into in the US were not a problem here. They had the fireworks not 40 meters from the athletes so you were right under the action and you really felt the explosions. I great sound track that I was sound system right behind us did not hurt the experience either.
After such a unique experience as the Opening Ceremony was I was really excited to down to the races. The first race was the sprint competition on Saturday. I started off really strong and felt really good. I skied maybe 5 seconds behind a French guy who was starting his second lap as I was starting my first. I could not make up the gap but I was not losing much time if any at all. I skied with him for 2 plus K of the 3.3 K loop. I skied with him through all the uphill sections without losing more than a few seconds but when it came to the downhill I really started losing time. It was an ice sheet out there and I was really worried about it as I saw a guy break his rifle and a guy bleeding from the head on the same downhill section in last weekend’s Central European Cup races and I knew that having either of those problems would not only put a damper on my race it would also be detrimental to my health. So I played it safe and lost a crazy amount of time. At the time I thought I made the right move but in hindsight I realize that I really need to go for it if I want to race at this level. It was my first mistake that I would contribute to my inexperience on the international level and unfortunately would not be my last of the day.
I came into the range for prone very confident in my shooting ability but not extremely focused. I was a little distracted by my skiing and did not switch to shooting mode fast enough. I then got confused on taking clicks off my zero and missed two prone. It could have been worse it could have been better but the worst part of it was that while I was second guessing myself on whether I took the clicks the right way or not the clock was ticking and I left the range with the 3rd slowest range time in prone. It was a real learning experience for me so I don’t mind having those now instead of later in my career, even if this is Jr World Champs because this is my first and the one to learn as much as I can so when JWC come around next year when I am the oldest in my age class I will be ready to really do some work.
In the 2nd loop I skied with a guy that had already made up a minute on me. He got away a little on the flats but I made the time back up on the longest uphill which felt great.
After shooting standing, where I only missed one, which again could have been better but could have been worse I was back on course for my last lap. I felt like I was tiring but it might have been that I had more confidence in the downhill or others around me were tiring worse like the same guy that I skied with on the 2nd loop but it was my best ranked loop.
As I result it ended up being too many mistakes to make it on to the Pursuit but I only see the pluses of everything. I know what I did right and what I did wrong, I will continue with the good, fix the bad and use the extra day to recover from my sickness to really kill it in the Individual on Wednesday.
