February 02, 2011 (Otepaa, Estonia) – Holy cow, today’s been an absolutely huge day! With 4 races going on I have no idea how the coaches and wax techs kept up with it all! First we had the junior women’s 4×3.3km relay, in which we finished 7th. I’m so totally excited because we moved up a place from last year!

The relay went like this: Amy Glen scrambled (classic) and tagged off to Kinsey Loan, who then tagged of to me for the skate half of the relay. I tagged Joanne and she anchored us for a solid 7th place. I’m also extremely excited about finishing second for lap splits to Heidi Wang (Norway) by 5.4 seconds. It was definitely a successful day – and we definitely had some crazy fast skis (yeah Salomon!)

After the relay, we travel waxed our skis, packed out bags and set out for a long day of spectating! And we did some HARD CORE cheering. We had numerous US flags and signs, and I do believe we also had the loudest voices on the whole course.

The junior men’s 4x5km relay went second, and they ended up finishing 10th in a close sprint with Canada. Then a short while later, the women’s 15km pursuit race set off, and Sadie led the US with a 17th place finish.

The last race of the day was the men’s 30km pursuit, and it was so much fun to cheer as the sun came out and it was an absolutely gorgeous day!

Noah led the US men with a 22nd place finish, but the coolest part of the whole day was seeing Alex Harvey crush it today and WIN THE WHOLE DARN RACE!!!! It was totally inspiring to hear an anthem other than Norway being blasted in the stadium.

I’m giving a huge shout-out to all the coaches and wax techs for all their hard work and patience in dealing with US. And thanks also to NCCSEF for all the support. It wouldn’t have happened without you!

So now I’m headed over to Madona, Latvia, with the Scando Cup team… and pretty much the only thing I know about Latvia is that car-jacking is basically a sport. The next week should be very interesting!

January 28, 2011 (Otepaa, Estonia) – Germany’s Lucia Anger claimed the Junior Women’s classic 1.2km sprint title as the two leading skiers Elena Soboleva (RUS) and Germany’s Hanna Kolb crashed over the final hill in the final leaving the door open for Anger. Norway grabbed the remaining spots with Kari Oeyre Slind taking the silver medal, while her teammate Ragnhild Haga won the bronze.

Canada’s Janelle Greer and Heidi Widmer both qualified but did not advance past the quarter finals and finished 21st and 28th respectively. American Heather Mooney (USA) missed qualifying by 0.29s, placing 31^st, followed by Amy Glen (USA) in 42nd, Heather Mehain (CAN) in 45th, Izzy Caldwell (USA) in 57th, Kinsey Loan (USA) in 58th and Canada’s Annika Hicks who placed 61st.

“It was a disappointing day for me today,” said Widmer. “I was hoping to improve on last year’s 15th place qualification and 22nd overall sprint results but I just didn’t have access to those top gears today. In my qualifier, I skied the first half with decent speed, but during a transition on one of the small climbs, I wasn’t aggressive enough with my kick which cost me.”

“I quickly put the mediocre qualifier behind me and set my sights on the afternoon heats. I lost contact with the group on the second climb and made up some time on the descent thanks to some fast skis finishing 28th. Today taught me a lot and reminded me that I still have a long journey ahead and I’m excited to see what the future has in store,” added Widmer.

Kolb, the fastest qualifier, was the favourite and she and Soboleva advanced to the final winning their quarters and semis. The dramatics for the women’s Junior World title unfolded during the final match up as Soboleva was leading with Kolb right behind and Anger in tow as the others trailed.

Over the final uphill Kolb tumbled and took out Soboleva. That’s when Anger, reacting to what happened made her move and burned it to the finish line to take the win. The Norwegian Slind also came up from behind and finished 0.3 seconds back. Haga, the winner of the opening junior 5km free race, was third.

Anger basked in the spotlight saying, “I had hoped to win a medal in a competition here, but the sprint gold is a surprise for me. My tactics were to go as fast as I could. I saw what happened when the crash took place. I looked that I could pass them from the left and it was very close for me as well.”

Slind was happy with her finish. “The crash is part of the game, but I feel lucky. I passed them and did not get involved in the accident….you just have to be a little lucky to get there.”

Qualifications HERE.
Final Results HERE.