First taste of International Competition, Yikes...

Well my first race at World Junior Championships here in Estonia is now in the books. It came in the form of a 10km skate individual start, and I ended up finishing 64th. It was a hard race, and I'm still trying to find the words to describe my experience. All in all, it was a fairly mediocre race for me. It was definitely not as bad as my race in Silverstar before Christmas, but nothing like my 10km skate in Rossland.

I'll leave my race debriefing comments for another time, but long story short, I am fairly disappointed with my result. Coming into these races I had no idea what to expect, having barely ever raced anyone from outside of Canada before. So I was hoping for at least top half, which would have been 51st spot, but I came up 34 seconds short of that goal.

The rest of the guys said they also felt their races, for the most part, were less than stellar. Andy Shields was the top Canadian in 49th spot, followed very closely by Russell Kennedy in 50th, myself in 64th, and Aaron Gilmor in 68th.

Full results from todays race can be seen here: http://www.fis-ski.com/uk/604/610.html?sector=CC&raceid=17717

Our next race will be the classic sprints on Friday, so we're all hoping for better things then. The U23 racing gets underway tomorrow, so we're looking forward to seeing how the rest of our team will do. Live broadcasting also starts with tomorrows race, and will continue for the rest of our races through the weekend.

Cheers.