First Continental Cup Points

Skate race at COC in Planica, Slovenia

I am happy to report on the best weekend of my trip thus far! When we first started training here in Planica I was jumping the best I have jumped on this trip. I was able to convert that over to the competitions much better than I did the previous two weekends. This weekend's competition was on a K125 which we don't usually get to compete on and makes for a much harder comp. On the first day of competition I had a fairly good jump and ended up jumping to 32nd place. I was psyched about this because it is the best I have started in any of the COC events on this trip. The race was on a hard course with lots of hills and a windy day making for hard flats as well. I was able to ski behind a faster Austrian skier who pulled me up into points going into the last lap of the race. Unfortunately I had used a lot of energy getting to that point and was passed by two skiers on that last lap. However I was able to hold on to 30th place and score my first COC points of my career. My teammate Ben Berend had a great day as well jumping to 10th place and skiing to 23rd place! You can check out the results from the first day here. On the second day of competition I had a very similar jump which ended up putting me into 33rd position to start the race. I was able to ski behind a faster ski from Finland who started right behind me on the first lap and I followed him up to another group of skiers who were right behind points. I then skied with that group up into the low 20's. I was able to ski with them all the way to the finish but the two skiers I was with beat me out at the finish line. I ended up skiing up to 28th position which I was very excited about as it is the best I have done in a COC in my career thus far. If you want to check out results from this day you can check them out here.

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On my way to the second day of points!

I am now here in Planica with my World Junior Championships team consisting of myself, Ben Berend, Koby Vargas, Somer Schrock, and Ben Loomis. We have been here training for the past couple of days which has been great to get the team together and get some great training in before we head off to compete. We will be driving to Munich on Thursday and flying to Almaty, KAZ on Friday.  The competition schedule will start with a 10km Ind. on Wed. the 4th of February followed with a day off then a 5km Ind. on Fri the 6th and finishing with a team relay on the 7th. I will post a small update when we get settled with more info and pics so stay tuned!