Well, the World U23/Junior Championships in Erzurum, Turkey didn’t go quite as I had planned. My goal going into the championships was to get a top 12 placing in one or both of the two distance races. But instead I placed 36th in the 15km classic and 35th in the 30km pursuit and 47th in the sprint. Let’s start with the sprint.
The skate sprint was not a big focus for me, but since each country’s allowed four starts in each race and we were only four U23 men I thought I might was well give it a shot. I actually had a decent sprint considering how my sprinting has been going so far this season and finished **th, but for me the real races were yet to come.
Two days later was the 15km classic. I’m still not quite sure why this race didn’t go better. I feel like I had a good preparation leading up to the race and that I skied a solid race, but i just felt tired and “flat”. It wasn’t a terrible race, I just feel like I should have been able to do better, and that can be a frustrating feeling. Maybe I needed to do some longer, harder intensities a couple days before to get my body in better race shape. The result wasn’t too bad either considering the caliber of the competition. Usually the U23 Men category isn’t as competitive as the juniors since most of the best guys are off racing the world cups but this year was different. This year was by far the most competitive year in a long time since there was break in the world cup circuit so almost all the top U23 men in the world were racing in Turkey....
Article Link: http://www.dgreer.ca/2012/02/u23s.html