Continental Cup's in NOR

K85 hill in Hoydalsmo, NOR

I have now been in Europe for a little over a week and have one weekend of competitions in the books. I did not jump very well this past weekend which I was bummed about but I know I can jump much better going forward. We competed in the small town of Hoydalsmo, NOR. The weekend was full of snow and wind which made for interesting conditions. On the first day of competition I did not jump very well and started the race in 42nd place. The course was a hard one and paired with slow snow made for a brutal race. I skied fairly well and held my position and ended up in 42nd place overall. The next day I jumped a little bit better but not as good as I could have, I started the race in 36th place. The race condition were the same as the day before making for another hard day on the course, I skied better and was able to hold my position and end the day in 36th place overall. Going forward I have made great strides with the help of my coach Martin Bayer and am looking forward to redeeming myself on the jump hill this weekend! 

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Ben Berend & Michael Ward skiing in NOR

Beginning of our 10hr drive to Sweden

We are now in the town of Falun, Sweden the host town for the 2015 Nordic World Championships. It is a very nice complex with an extremely fun hill that I am looking forward to compete on. We were able to get some great training sessions on the hill earlier this week which was fantastic! The nordic complex is just below the ski jumps and an amazing one at that! We were able to ski the race course yesterday, it will be another hard course but a very fun one at that! This weekend if all goes to plan we will have a two man team sprint on Saturday and an Individual competition on Sunday. I am very excited for the weekend ahead. I will post an update again after this weekend on how it goes. If you would like to look at the results before I update again you can click here and look at the results after the comp. Make sure to click on the Falun link and then the Nordic Combined results to see how my teammates and I do!

The stadium for the Nordic races in Falun, Sweden