This past weekend we raced only a single sprint, in Monguelfo, ITA. The format was quite interesting; the morning qualifier was held up the Gsieser Tal (valley) about 20km from Monguelfo on an off-camber farmer’s field, while the heats were to be held that night on a downtown loop amidst a throng of spectators. The qualifying course was extremely fast with a long gradual climb that demanded powerful V2 up to the high point before rocketing downhill to the finish. After the previous weekend’s disasters I was adamant and very psyched to put down a solid qualifier and making it into the evening’s downtown heats. After a comprehensive warm-up I went to the line knowing I’d have to give everything to make the top-16. With the Olympics happening in Vancouver, the majority of top Europeans who weren’t on their Olympic teams were here at these OPA Cups, making for a super-competitive senior men’s field.br /br /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Mg2hQbkHkNs/S4EUli0TkBI/AAAAAAAAAX8/iV9Bhj5zhko/s1600-h/IMG_2255.JPG”img style=”margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;” src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Mg2hQbkHkNs/S4EUli0TkBI/AAAAAAAAAX8/iV9Bhj5zhko/s320/IMG_2255.JPG” alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5440652460074176530″ border=”0″ //adivbr //divdivI started strong, and 200m into the race I knew I was feeling better than I had in a long time. I pushed hard up the long climb and by the high point had given everything I had. I tucked down the hill and threw in a hard jump-V2 to the line. Given the fact we were using timing chips I was able to instantaneously see my finish split when I crossed, and saw I had come in 30th, only 3 seconds out of qualifying and in the top half of the men’s field. /divdivbr //divdivIt was a bittersweet race for me. I knew I had given everything and that I’m still not in top form yet. I got some of my best sprinting FIS points of the season. But I know I have the potential to be in that top-16, and I am anxious to get another sprint in to get closer to that goal. /divinput id=”gwProxy” type=”hidden”!–Session data–input onclick=”jsCall();” id=”jsProxy” type=”hidden”div id=”refHTML”/divdiv class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2910103639238326543-6210037450995481693?l=methowolympicdevelopment.blogspot.com’ alt=” //div
