OPA! - Schilpario, Italy

I just got back home to Canada after two long days of travel from Schilpario, Italy, where I raced three more OPA Cup races. The three races were set up sort of like a mini "Tour de Ski". The first race was a classic sprint. I needed to do well in this race because the better I did, the more of an advantage I would have going into the two distance races. I qualified 18th, which is ok for me, nothing special, but I was hoping to improve on that in the heats, but things didn't really play out in my favor. I was a little slow off the start but made my way back up into the pack by the top of the course's big climb, and was looking forward to the long flat double pole finish where I could excel. But in the steep, switch-back downhill to the finish I caught an edge and went down, and ended up finishing last in my heat, which put me down to 27th position at the end of the day.
The next day's race was a 10km classic race. The winner of the sprint race starts when the clock is at zero, and the more you move down the results list from the sprint race the day before, the more penalty time is added to the start clock before you start. Since I finished 27th in the sprint the day before, I started this first distance race in 27th position, 57 seconds behind the leader. I had a pretty good race, I paced myself well and passed 18 people, finishing the race in 9th spot overall, 55 seconds back from the leader. In this race, I had the 6th fastest time of the day, which placed me in 9th place overall.

The last race was a 15km skate. I started in 9th position, 55 seconds back from the leader. Throughout the race I worked a lot with a German skier who started 3 seconds behind me. We ended up catching three skiers ahead of us, and I ended up crossing the finish line in 7th position, with the 2nd fastest time of the day (fastest time of the day went to the German guy I was skiing with for most of the race).

Next up on the agenda is Nationals, in Duntroon, Ontario, in two weeks.