On to Slovenia

The K90 and K125 in Falun, Sweden

This past weekend was the second weekend of Continental Cup Competitions which was located in Falun, Sweden. This will be the location of this years Nordic World Championships. The complex is amazing and I feel lucky to have gotten the chance to train and compete there. The competitions kicked off on Saturday with a team sprint, the format for this is a two man team with one jump each. I was on a team with Ben Berend which I was excited about as he is a fantastic jumper and a great teammate and friend. We jumped fairly well starting in 9th position, for the skate portion we skied a 1.2km loop 5 times each. I skied the anchor leg, it was a brutal race as there were some very hard hills and an extremely fast pace.  We ended up skiing back a couple of spots but we were happy with our performance as we competed against older and more experienced competitors.  

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The ski flying hill in Planica, Slovenia

The next day was the individual event  which was the same format as the past weekend with one jump and a 10km skate race. I did not jump as well as I could have but was fairly close to points (top 30 scores points) as I was in 40th place but only 30 sec out of points. I had a great race and had fast skies making for a super fun race. I was able to ski up to 34th position but there were several fast skier behind me who kept me out of points but I was happy with my performance as it was improvement. 

The K90 and K125 in Planica, Slovenia

We are now in Planica, Slovenia the closest thing to a European home my teammates and I have so we are psyched to be here! We stay at the same place when we are here, it is a bed and breakfast type place and we have gotten to know the owner very well and it turns out he follows the NFL so it is fun to chat about that with him! We have been able to get some great training on the jump hills here and I am jumping much better than I have this trip so I am psyched. This weekend we have two more individual COC events so we are looking forward to that! On the way here we picked up two of my teammates who are on the World Junior Team, Sumer Schrock and Ben Loomis. Koby Vargas is also on the team and he arrives on Saturday we are psyched to be assembling the team.  We will be here in Planica training until next Thursday and the departing for WJC in Almaty. We are excited for this weekend and you can check out how we do here. Once going to this link you can then click on the Planica event and the NC events to see how we do. Stay tuned as more is to come!