January 24, 2011 (Otepaa, Estonia) -The Otepaa World Cup has been on my radar since the summer. It was appealing because the timing of it would be a great experience and a good primer for the 2011 World Junior Championships later in the week. After qualifying for the Canadian Junior Worlds team I was so relieved and excited. The cherry on top that news was that I earned a start in the World Cup in Otepaa – things were falling into place.

Nine of the twenty Canadian athletes on the Junior/U23 Worlds team left Finland and arrived in Estonia on Thursday, Jan. 20th. It was an 8-hour travel day, driving on both sides of the Gulf of Finland as well as a ferry ride across – it left me feeling less than optimal but happy to have arrived in Estonia!

We trained on the course on Friday and found out that they don’t mess around with the climbs here. The ascent on the 5km classic course parallels the ski jump landing right beside it – needless to say it’s steep. The sprint course is much different than the World Cup footage of the Tehvandi site that I’ve seen in the past. The climbs are not as aggressive, but the finishing 200m double pole stretch is still very demanding.

Sunday was sprint day, meaning it was my turn to host the butterflies. The course was bustling long before the sun rose, and there were light flurries throughout the morning with temperatures around -8. I was really excited to race today and have my European World Cup debut. I started wearing bib 44 and headed our on the course wanting to ski aggressively on all of the climbs and be as powerful and strong in my double pole as the rest of the women starting today.

Coming into the finish I felt satisfied, but knew that my ski wasn’t the calibre to qualify in top 30. Upon reviewing the results, I know I can qualify closer to the other Canadians, but at the same time, I was very excited to see Chandra [Crawford] and Dasha [Gaiazova] qualify as well as Alysson [Marshall] place 33rd ( only .57sec from qualifying!).

Overall, it was fun to swim in the deep water with the big fish but most importantly, I got a good feel for the course and learned plenty to be put to good use later in the week at Junior World Championships.

Alysson Marshall on her race
I felt really strong this morning in both striding and double poling. I have done a lot of work on my classic technique this year and it has paid off. Eric [de Nys Canadian coach] gave me an added boost on the finishing double pole stretch when he yelled that I was in the mix for top 30. I crossed the line and heard the announcer say that I was in 33rd. Initially I was disappointed to have missed out on the heats by only 0.57 seconds but it was encouraging to be so close.