Biography

I started cross country skiing at the age of seven. I was asked at my local daycare in Pakenham, ON if I would like to try the sport by Heinz Niederhauser, who soon became my first coach. I started skiing and racing in the National Capital Division and loved it. Every weekend there was a different race somewhere and a chance to meet up with all my friends and team mates.

When I was 14, I started racing the Ontario Cup series races. I qualified for the Ontario team that year and represented the province at my first national championships, held in Canmore, AB.

I spent 2 seasons training with the National Team Development Centre in Thunder Bay, ON before I made the move to Canmore last spring to train as a member of the newly formed Alberta World Cup Academy team. I am now starting my second season on the Academy.

With 2 world junior championships, an under 23 world championship, and four world cup races under my belt I am looking forward to another great racing season that will be filled with new adventures and hopefully some new opportunities that will lead me closer to achieving my goal of representing Canada at the Olympics.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

U23 Sprints

So I just raced my first under 23 world championship race here in Schlinig, Italy this morning. It was a 1.3km skate sprint. I placed 32. I was just 0.68 seconds out of qualifying for the heats. SO CLOSE!!! I am very happy with my race. I raced it to the best of my abilities.

It was so exciting to go out and race today after the amazing performance of the Canadian team junior athletes yesterday. 7/8 of our junior racers qualified yesterday. They set the bar high and all the U23 athletes just went out there today trying to keep up the great performances. 3 U23 athletes qualified (2 in the top 10!). Congrats to Peri, Amanda, and Brent!

The temperature here has climbed to somewhere between 15 and 20 degrees celcius for the last two days ao we are skiing in some unusual conditions. It is pretty weird to cross the finish line and change out of my race suit into a t-shirt and shorts. Apparently it is supposed to snow in 2 days... yeah right.

The town of Mals (where we are staying) is awesome. This is my first world championships where we have actually stayed right in a town. There is a real sense of community. We see all the little kids rollerblading on the cobblestones (it's really funny) to school and comming home for lunch. Our hotel is right above a little bakery. It is pretty sweet. Everyone has been really nice to our entire team and the meals have been fabulous.

I race again on Tuesday. We have a 10km classic race. Tommorow our juniors race their distance classic races. Good luck!
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