U23 World Championships in Lahti, Finland got rolling on Jan. 21 with a classic sprint. In our quest to check in with some of the North American athletes in Finland, with emailed a list of quick-hit questions to touch base. Graham Ritchie trains with Thunder Bay NTDC and represented Canada at Junior Worlds at Soldier Hollow in 2017 and Goms, Switzerland, in 2018. Ritchie is from Parry Sound, Ontario, best known as the birthplace of Bobby Orr.
What is the first difference you noticed between Finland and Norway? All I’d say about that is, I thought I was back in TBay when we landed in Helsinki.
What are you reading? I’m not an avid reader so unfortunately I don’t have anything to give you here, haha! I’m currently in enrolled in a general business program at the college in Thunder Bay though so that keeps me busy!
How are you approaching this Worlds differently than those in the past? This is my second Worlds trip, my first was last year as a junior. This year I am a first year U23, so I went into the competition knowing it was going to be a lot of grinding. I approached this worlds with my main focus on the sprint. I knew that if I raced the way that I could, I would be happy with my performance. In the end, I was stoked with my performance, mostly in the qualifier!
What are some “performance goals” going into the races you are focusing on? My performance goal going into the championships was to qualify for the sprint heats. I did achieve this goal and I was super happy to have qualified 19th. After that, my goal was the qualify for semi-finals, but it didn’t work out. I learned about some tactics I need to work on to help my performance for the next two years to come!
