Good morning everyone - sorry for the delayed post.... first of all, GOOD LUCK to all the APUers at Besh Cup 6 today in Fairbanks and have SO MUCH FUN to those participating in the Ski for Women at Kincaid! nbsp;Take lots of pictures! br /div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Wl4EmOZ6xTM/S27V78u7BPI/AAAAAAAAAlE/sIo_h8t6FCU/s1600-h/Holly+Canmore+Sprint+.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Wl4EmOZ6xTM/S27V78u7BPI/AAAAAAAAAlE/sIo_h8t6FCU/s320/Holly+Canmore+Sprint+.jpg" //a/divdiv class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"br //divdiv class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"(Classic prelim - photo courtesy of Fasterskier)nbsp;/divdiv class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"br //divdiv class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"Yesterday was my second World Cup and my first World Cup sprint. nbsp;Both races here in Canmore this weekend, (10k individual skate and classic sprint) are the first two races at the Olympics so it's great to get a tune up and test the field.nbsp;/divdiv class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"br //diva href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Wl4EmOZ6xTM/S27YxNVkSdI/AAAAAAAAAlM/xp5JHOof6-s/s1600-h/P2060004_50p.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Wl4EmOZ6xTM/S27YxNVkSdI/AAAAAAAAAlM/xp5JHOof6-s/s320/P2060004_50p.JPG" //abr /div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"(Sun coming up over the Canadian Rockies as we waited for the shuttle that never came)nbsp;/divdiv class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"br //divdiv class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"Before I started the race, one of the coaches, Travis, said to me, "Holly, you may be the only skier out there that has scored World Cup points in every World Cup start!" nbsp;After my prelim, I walked back to the waxing table and told him that I continued my trend! Of my 2 World Cup starts, I've collected WC points in both!nbsp;/divdiv class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"br //divdiv class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"The course suited me very well - it was long and had lots of striding uphills - plus we're at altitude and I usually preform well racing up in the mountains. nbsp;My prelim time was ranked 21st, overall. nbsp;I was ecstatic! nbsp;When I looked at the results I also realized that I was "sandwiched" between the defending sprint champion from World Champs in Liberec, Arianna Follis, and my teammate, defending Silver medalist in the sprint, Kikkan Randall. nbsp;I was among good company which made me even happy with the preliminary result!nbsp;/divdiv class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"br //divdiv class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"/span/divdiv style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"Fornbsp;thosenbsp;thatnbsp;arenbsp;interested,nbsp;FISnbsp;justnbsp;releasednbsp;anbsp;newnbsp;websitenbsp;fornbsp;thenbsp;Olympics.nbsp;nbsp;It'snbsp;awesomenbsp;-nbsp;younbsp;cannbsp;looknbsp;upnbsp;skiersnbsp;andnbsp;checknbsp;outnbsp;fullnbsp;biosnbsp;ofnbsp;allnbsp;thenbsp;Worldnbsp;Cupnbsp;regulars.nbsp;(It'snbsp;almostnbsp;betternbsp;thannbsp;googlenbsp;stalkingnbsp;butnbsp;notnbsp;quitenbsp;asnbsp;completenbsp;asnbsp;facebooknbsp;stalking!)nbsp;Checknbsp;outnbsp;a href="http://www.fiscrosscountry.com/about-competitor-top-ath/follis-arianna,17653.html"Follis'nbsp;bionbsp;here/anbsp;ornbsp;checknbsp;thisnbsp;linknbsp;fornbsp;thenbsp;a href="http://www.fiscrosscountry.com/national-teams.html""team"nbsp;page./a/divdiv style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"It will tell you if skiers like meat or veggies, ferrari or porche, etc, etc. nbsp;Kind of fun!nbsp;/divbr /div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"br //divdiv class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"/span/divtable class="athlete-container" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 2px; width: 880px;"tbodytrtd class="head-left" style="padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 3px; vertical-align: top; width: 455px;"img alt="Arianna FOLLIS" height="175" src="http://www.fiscrosscountry.com/data/classes/athlete/comp_17653_topathleteabout.jpg" width="200" /br /br /(Ariannanbsp;Follisnbsp;-nbsp;Italy/defendingnbsp;sprintnbsp;Worldnbsp;Champion)br /br //tdtd class="head-right" style="padding-left: 3px; vertical-align: top; width: 418px;"div class="actu_description" style="border-bottom-color: black; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify;"br //div/td/tr/tbody/tablea href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Wl4EmOZ6xTM/S27Z2xX28MI/AAAAAAAAAlU/Pej-4NZNmMM/s1600-h/P2060011_50p.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Wl4EmOZ6xTM/S27Z2xX28MI/AAAAAAAAAlU/Pej-4NZNmMM/s320/P2060011_50p.JPG" //abr /div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"br //divdiv class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"(Shot of the finish line)/divdiv class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"br //divdiv class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Wl4EmOZ6xTM/S281zGnIRyI/AAAAAAAAAlc/wVFsYwfD7QM/s1600-h/P2060025_50p.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Wl4EmOZ6xTM/S281zGnIRyI/AAAAAAAAAlc/wVFsYwfD7QM/s320/P2060025_50p.JPG" //a/divdiv class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"br //divdiv class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"Katie, Kikkan, and Hollynbsp;/divdiv class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"br //divdiv class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"My quarterfinal didn't go so well but I am satisfied with the overall day. nbsp;It was a good day for North Americans in general - Kikkan finished 10th, Torin Koos finished 11th after qualifying 2nd... seven Americans all together qualified for the heats, 2 women and five men. Hometown favorite, Sara Renner ended up 3rd place with a bronze medal. And - it was an awesome day. Skiing doesn't get much better than a full-shine day in Canmore watching and competing with the best skiers in the world!nbsp;/divdiv class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"br //divdiv class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Wl4EmOZ6xTM/S283jlMJFgI/AAAAAAAAAlk/JdpPK0lEC_Q/s1600-h/P2060031_50p.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Wl4EmOZ6xTM/S283jlMJFgI/AAAAAAAAAlk/JdpPK0lEC_Q/s320/P2060031_50p.JPG" //a/divdiv class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"br //divdiv class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"Speaking of the best skiers, Poland's Justyna Kowalczyk continued her domination by literally destroying the field. It was impressive to watch. nbsp;She had tons of screaming Polish fans at the race too. nbsp;They got a picture with her afterwards... I snuck in too: nbsp;/divdiv class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"br //divdiv class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Wl4EmOZ6xTM/S284MjyVCYI/AAAAAAAAAls/sdyWeM-QflQ/s1600-h/P2060048_50p.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Wl4EmOZ6xTM/S284MjyVCYI/AAAAAAAAAls/sdyWeM-QflQ/s320/P2060048_50p.JPG" //a/divdiv class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"br //divdiv class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"Here is the female podium for the day:nbsp;/divdiv class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"br //diva href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Wl4EmOZ6xTM/S284V04rDLI/AAAAAAAAAl0/ot6oxqkqtus/s1600-h/P2060044_50p.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Wl4EmOZ6xTM/S284V04rDLI/AAAAAAAAAl0/ot6oxqkqtus/s320/P2060044_50p.JPG" //abr /br /Also, here are a bunch of youtube links from the weekend if you're interested.br /br /Here I am skiing in the 10k - this hill was BIG and we had to do it twice:br /http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_B0vxFFPpIbr /br /Check out this promo for the Canmore Nordic Center. It gives you a really good idea of what the area look like. It also shows their snow-making and paved roller ski trails:br /http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRCR0Mgemv4br /br /Here is a Eurosport video of the women's A final:br /http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVgXveNc5wAbr /br /Phil Bowen, professional photography (philsgood.com), has a gallery of shots from the classic sprint here:br /http://www.photoshelter.com/c/philsgood/gallery/Canmore-Nordic-World-Cup-2010-Classic-Sprint/G00005o2Aw990.zk/br /br /Enjoy!br /br /We're in Canmore for another day before making our way to Vancouver Tuesday morning....div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6401505974719455979-1378023259113628351?l=hollyskis.blogspot.com' alt='' //div