20-for-20 with Jenna Sherrington

In an effort to showcase the North Americans competing at this week’s International Biathlon Union (IBU) 2018 Youth and Junior World Championships in Otepää, Estonia, we asked those qualifying athletes several questions about themselves — actually, we had them fill in the blanks. Here we have 16-year-old Jenna Sherrington, of Calgary, who is representing Canada at her first Youth World Championships.

In her last race of Youth Worlds, the youth women’s 7.5 k pursuit, Sherrington placed 39th (+5:28.1 with four penalties). She also finished 40th in the 10 k individual on Monday and 46th in the 6 k sprint on Friday.

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“My full name is Jenna Sherrington but you can call me Jenna.

I was born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, and I learned to ski at age 2.

I spent the time between World Youth/Junior trials and Worlds training, preparing, going to school and coaching cross-country skiing to 5 year olds.

The hardest and most fun workout I did in the last training year to prepare for this was bicycle 1100 kilometers from Quebec City to Charlottetown with my Dad.

One thing I’m working on this season to improve my biathlon is being able to completely focus during a race. Last year I had quite a bit of trouble getting out of my own head while racing so I’ve been trying to improve that.

This is my first time in Estonia and first time racing internationally, and so far it’s been an incredible learning opportunity and experience.

One difference I’ve noticed between Estonia and Canada is the language is very different and they eat lots of potatoes.

One of the things I’m most excited about for World Youth/Junior Championships in Otepää is travelling to a new country and competing against the best youth biathletes in the world.

One race I’m especially targeting there is the sprint.

Watching the Olympics in the lead up to my own races was really inspiring to see the best biathletes in the world race as hard as they could for their country. One of my favourite moments of the Olympics was when Martin Fourcade won in the 15km mass start with a photo finish against Simon Schempp. I want to be like Laura Dahlmeier because she always has a smile on her face and it looks like she has a genuine love for the sport of biathlon.

At Worlds, I really hope I can chat/make friends with someone from Norway and ask them what it’s like to live in Norway and what the Norwegian culture is like.

My favorite thing at the breakfast where we are staying is the fruit, there’s always oranges or grapes, which is fantastic.

Before this trip, if you said “Estonia”, the first thing I’d think of would have been “sorry, where?”.

Now that I’m here, I’m pretty sure something I’ll always remember will be the people I meet and how incredibly sparkly the snow is.

If I had a totally free day here and didn’t have to worry about race fitness or training, I’d spend it skiing around on the absolutely breath taking trails that intertwine and surround the town.

The best way to follow me on social media is on Instagram @jennasherrington.”