Sunday, February 24, 2013

World Champs Team Sprint

Today I raced the team sprint with Andrew Newell. I was planning on racing the pursuit yesterday but when I got to the venue to warm up I was told Simi Hamilton, who was scheduled to team up with Andy, was not feeling good so I could race the team sprint if I wanted. I was in for sure! I decided to skip the pursuit to conserve as much energy as I could for today. If someone would have told me a year ago that I was going to be in the team sprint at the World Champs with Andy Newell I would have said no way. It was an awesome opportunity. Todays game plan was to ski in the front pack and conserve as much energy as I could. As usual things did not go exactly as planned. I had a good start and was skiing around 5th in the first lap when someone stepped on my pole from behind and it broke, forcing me to ski about a half lap with one pole. Luckily the pace was not to high at that point so I was able to keep position. The second lap went smoothly and I kept my spot in the lead pack. Then on the third lap when I was really starting to hurt someone in the front made a burst at the top of the first hill and everyone scrambled to hold on. A French guy, a Finish dude, and myself tangled. I might have been the only guy to go down but I was actually the first guy out of the little cluster f*c#, but by that point we were out of contact with the top four. We ended up finishing 7th in our heat and about 10 seconds out of moving on to the finals. I think we would have had a good shot of moving on if I wouldn't have gone down. Oh well, it was still a TON of fun and a great opportunity. I hope I get to do more team sprints with Newell in the future. That dude is fast and just an all around great guy!
 The U.S. women had a pretty amazing day! Here they are on the podium.
 1st! Making history..
The guys top three teams.

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