As much as I enjoy competing on the World Cup level, it was nice to be back in a field where I got to race the sprints through to the final. No matter how illustrious the field, I'm never satisfied with only racing once or twice and watching others continue to the finals. But today, at the U23 World Championships in Tarvisio, Italy, I made it through to the Women's A Final.

The course was deceivingly hard. There was one gradual hill out of the start and then a long gradual down back to the finish. Sounds easy, but it ended up not allowing for any rest because the downhill was too shallow to tuck. Yesterday while previewing the course I tried double poling the hill to see if I wanted to race on skate skis. I decided that it would be better to stride for me. When the sun started really hitting the course (about 10:30am) the snow started breaking down and turning into slush pits. So when we skied yesterday afternoon, it was slow and soaking.

This morning for the qualifier I felt confident, confident in my skis, confident in myself. I was seeded 12th and I wanted to be top 5 in the qualifier. I took some quick strides to get up to speed and then double pole into the base of the hill. Then quick, springy strides up to the top. There was a flat spot on the top of the hill that was SLOW but I made it through and hit the downhill, taking the best line, staying where the snow was fastest, and double poling hard all the way into the finish. A pretty solid ski, but only good enough for... 12th. I was disappointed. At least I get another shot at the course in the quarterfinals, I thought.

I checked back in at the wax cabin after a short cool down. The other girls racing for us had done awesomely-- Lindsay Williams qualified in 9th and Morgan Smyth in 11th. Back in the wax cabin the coaches recommended that we switch to skate skis because the course was slowing down so much that they thought having the extra speed on the long finishing downhill would be worth the extra effort of double poling up the hill. Sounded good to me, so I confirmed which skate skis I wanted to race on and went out to the van to nap in the backseat until it was time to warm up again for my 12:15 quarterfinal.

Smyth raced in the first quarterfinal, getting a slow start double poling while all the other girls strode of the start line, but coming around them by the finish to advance to the semis. Williams and I were in the fourth quarterfinal together. Surprisingly, all of the other girls were rockin' the classic skis. Also surprisingly, I had no trouble keeping up with them on the uphill, only one Estonian girl had a gap at the top and I caught and passed her on the downhill to win my quarterfinal easily. Williams was a close third but not quite fast enough to be a *lucky loser.

My semifinal was a not stellar. I started out double poling and a girl cut into the track in front of me, except she wasn't actually ahead of me so she skied over my ski and we went for a couple of double poles with out skis entangled. And then I got disentangled and moved into the next track over. Then I saw her moving over again and this time I jumped out of my track before she could take us both out. Except I had moved into a track behind another girl who was really slow going up the hill. Arghh. At the top of the hill I was in fifth and sick of it, so I passed everybody. I thought I could ski away on the downhill because of my faster skis. But I was wrong and everyone drafted off of me until the finish where I got passed by two girls. The Estonian passed me right at the line and the announcer actually announce me as finishing second and then said that they would have to check the video. I don't know why they don't just ask the athletes. We both knew who crossed the line first. But anyway, now I was sitting in third waiting to hear if I would be a lucky loser. Smyth also finished third so we were both in the same boat. At least we knew that at least one of us would get to race the A Final.

I made it into the A Final, Smyth into the B Final. Grateful, I swore not to repeat any of my previous mistakes. Smyth rocked the B Final and had a photo finish and barely got beat out to take 8th overall. I picked the far right lane so I wouldn't get cut into again (there was a left hand corner at the end of the straight away). It gave me a clean start as all the other girls immediately moshed into the left-most lanes and I moved over at my leisure, getting a good skate push in with each lane change. I was more relaxed on the uphill now that I knew I could keep up with the striders and came over the top in sixth. This must change, I thought, so I started moving around girls and making my way up. The Russian girl was out to fight and throwing elbows and going out of her way to cut people off. Wow, maybe you would be faster if you stopped wasting energy trying to take the rest of us out. So I was glad to get firmly in front of her. Coming through the last flat section I was in the second row of a block of four. And happy to be there. There was a slight headwind and I hardly had to work (well, you know, considering it was a sprint race) to keep up. There was one 90° corner before the finishing straight. I made my move on the outside and went around all but one girl. Booked it down to the finish but couldn't catch her. Second place, and I skied the race well, so I was pretty pleased!!

*lucky loser: The current sprint format is 5 quarterfinals with 6 racers in each heat. Top two from each heat qualify for the semifinals (that's ten athletes). Then the next two racers with the fastest times also qualify (for a total of twelve). Those two "lucky losers" could have each been third in their heat or they could have finished third and fourth in the same heat, it's strictly off of time. Then there's two semifinals with 6 racers in each. The top two from each semi final move on to the A Final along with next two "lucky losers" with the fastest times. The remaining six go on to the B Final.