!–StartFragment– p class=”MsoNormal”Monguelfo City Sprint/p p class=”MsoNormal”span style=”” /spanOur third OPA cup race was in Monguelfo, Italy last Friday. It was one of the more exciting sprints I have done. The qualifier was held in the morning 20 km out of town, and the sprint was held at night in downtown Monguelfo. The qualifier went really well for me; it was a short course that was all V2. I qualified 11supth/sup in the junior category, a little over 3 seconds out of first. It was also my lowest (best) FIS points race ever, with 76 points. For the heat they had laid a 400 meter loop of snow downtown. In my heat I had two Germans and a French guy. The guys did the loop three times. The loop was covered with spectators. The atmosphere was very festive and lively; I was super pumped. The trail was maybe 15 feet wide. It had been raining off and on all day and was just starting to snow. It was a double pole start and I got out third, the two Germans in front of me. Because the trail was so thin I knew I was going to really have to fight to get into second. There was one 15 ft. high hill, a corner right before it and a corner right after it. I knew that was going to have to be the spot I was going to have to make my move if I wanted to move on into the semifinals. /p p class=”MsoNormal”The first lap I made a move on the German in front of me but just as I was almost beside him he cut the corner sharp and boxed me out. I skied right on his ass for another lap waiting to try and take the outside this time so I could try to box him out on the corner. I made sure I was so close to him, every time he poled, his poles would hit me. I went into the corner right on him and went up the hill wide and just as I did that the French guy took the inside. There were three of us fighting for the second place position on maybe a 20 ft wide trail. The German and French guy got tangled just as we were cresting the top of the hill and the French guy tripped and fell into me, knocking me off the course into the fence. I got up as fast as I could but had lost 20 meters on the German and 10 meters on the French. I skied as hard as I could for the next lap but just couldn’t catch them. I was really pissed but it was still so fun. Definitely the loudest crowd I have ever heard in a ski race. /p p class=”MsoNormal”After finishing the French guy came up to me and shook my hand and apologized for knocking me off course. These guys are really intense athletes and want just as badly as me to do the best they can, and they will fight for it. It is really fun to compete against so many strong, talented athletes; It makes for a really tight race.a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_pZgXW6b1QMk/S4ESZQBiw-I/AAAAAAAAAHE/slqfN0XduVs/s1600-h/IMG_2245.JPG”img style=”margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_pZgXW6b1QMk/S4ESZQBiw-I/AAAAAAAAAHE/slqfN0XduVs/s400/IMG_2245.JPG” alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5440650049847739362″ border=”0″ //aa onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_pZgXW6b1QMk/S4ER6zW-buI/AAAAAAAAAG8/nK4KxyvqEkE/s1600-h/IMG_2246.JPG”img style=”margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_pZgXW6b1QMk/S4ER6zW-buI/AAAAAAAAAG8/nK4KxyvqEkE/s400/IMG_2246.JPG” alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5440649526756929250″ border=”0″ //a/pp class=”MsoNormal”This is me going out of the start in the qualifier. Behind me in one of the red Swiss suits is Dario Cologna(the Swiss man who just one the gold medal at the olympics in the 15km freestyle) younger brother, Gianluc Cologna. Gianluc finished 17th in the junior race.br //p !–EndFragment–input 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/2910103639238326543-8997761167836401690?l=methowolympicdevelopment.blogspot.com’ alt=” //div
