World Junior Championship Day 1 Review

USA Nordic Combined Team for World Junior Championships

After our week in Almaty, KAZ I am excited with how I performed and very motivated to keep training and getting better for next year. For our competitions we had two individuals, a 10km and a 5km, along with one 4 man team event. On the day of the 10km Ind event I did not jump very well but I was still able to jump towards the middle of the field. After the jumping I was in 34th position, Ben Berend was in 19th, Ben Loomis was in 31st and Somer Schrock was in 45th. 

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In the race I knew I had chosen the right pair of skis as I was keeping up with everyone I was skiing with on the downhills. At the end of the 1st lap I made a move to get away from a group of about five skiers and begin my trek up the field. As I continued my way up the field I was joined by a Swiss skier whom I ended up skiing the rest of the race with. Going into the final lap of the race I was in a group of four racers with an Italian, the Swiss Skier and a Japanese Skier. I skied behind the leader of that group for most of the lap allowing myself to recover as much as I could and gain some energy for the final push. We hit the bottom of the final hill which was rolling to the peak for about half a km and I decided to make my move then. I didn’t look back until I got to the top of the hill, when I looked back I had put a gap between myself and the group I was skiing with. I went through the tricky descent into the stadium and sprinted all the way to the finish ending up about 10sec ahead of the group I broke away from! After I got through the finish zone I looked at the screen and saw myself in 21st which I was very happy with! The rest of the team had a good day as well, Ben Berend ended up right in front of me in 20th, Ben Loomis was in 41st and Somer Schrock was in 40th. After this day we were pumped with our skiing and psyched to get a chance to redeem our selves on the jump hill the next day.

View of the inrun of the k90 in Almaty