Sprint and Skiathlon

Feb 22, 2015
3 min read

I am currently recovering after my first 2 races here at the World Champs. The atmosphere here in Falun has been awesome with sell out crowds and partying Norwegians making plenty of noise. The town is covered in posters for the event, and it seems like every shop will sell you something in bright orange with Falun 2015 on it.

[A look down on the Ski Jumping and Cross Country stadiums from half way up Mördarbacken]

I have been happy with both of my races so far. The sprint qualifier served as a great warm up. It was always unlikely that I was going to qualify for the heats, my goal was simply to feel some speed in my legs and get used to the systems, the start and the feeling of the snow all of which is a little different at the World Champs. Thanks to Mike, Colin, Andre, and Stefan, (Canadians who were waxing for team Trinidad and Tobago along with providing plenty of puns to lighten up the team NZ wax cabbin.), I had a great pair of skis to race on. The course was lined with fans making a ton of noise all the way through my qualifier. This made it very easy to give it everything I had. The conditions have been very warm and this has made the tracks soft and sloppy. I spent most of the race outside the track as I found this was easier to keep the skis flat and get good grip. By the time I crossed the line I was feeling pretty beat but satisfied with the way I skied. I ended up in 89th position. Improving my previous finish at the 2013 World Champs.

[Double Poling during the sprint qualifier. Photo: Fergus Bisset]

Alexei arrived safe and sound 2 days ago and I put him to work almost immediately as we had the skiathlon on Saturday afternoon. The skiathlon was one tough race!! As mentioned the tracks have been super soft. This meant it was full on klister conditions. Luckily Alexei (with a lot of help from our Polish friends) was able to nail the klister and I had great skis for both classic and skate portions of the 30km race. It was hard to not get a little bit emotional walking into the stadium for the mass start. When I ‘retired’ last year I never thought I would get to walk into a stadium like this again and it was quite overwhelming. However once the gun went it was time to race. The pace was extremely fast right from the gun and I was struggling to hold onto the pack. I wasn’t the only one and soon enough a small group of us feel of the back of the main pack. I felt stronger through each of the classic laps and by the time we hit the half waypoint and transitioned into skate skis I was hoping to move up a few more positions. I had one of the worst transitions in my career, almost missing my box and then taking too small a step onto the transition carpet. Essentially I became stuck firm about 1 foot short of where I wanted to be becoming as the klister on the bottom of my skis was stuck firm to the carpet. After loosing a few precious seconds I was out and onto the skate leg, which is where things became really hard. I have never been a great skate skier in super soft conditions and that’s exactly what I encountered. The slush was boot deep, the whole way around the course including the famous Mördarbacken hill (murder hill). I really struggled to deal with these soft conditions and was on total survival mode for the second half of the skate leg. I was a little disappointed with how the skate portion of the race went but happy to finish in 56th place. My best ever finish at the World Champs.