Casey Smith Biathlete: Italy

It has been a while since my last blog post and so I am sure that all of my one or maybe even two readers are waiting anxiously. After racing in Minnesota I went back to Maine for Christmas. My mom/Methow Valley Biathlon coach came out to world junior trials a few days early so that she could spend Christmas with me, it was very nice to see her. I was able to watch the first two races of world junior trials for the first time which was quite fun, it is much less stressful when you aren't racing. It was also pretty awesome to see so many of my teammates qualify for world juniors. Paul Everett and Kelsey Dickinson from Methow Valley Biathlon and Maddie Phaneuf, Mikaela Paluszek, Brian Halligan, and Kamran Husain from Maine Winter Sports.

On the day of the last race of world junior trials I left for Italy, it was an uneventful easy trip. Adjusting to the time difference meant about three days of feeling kind of gross but by the time the first race came I was feeling good and ready to go. Overall the races went really well, despite not qualifying for the Olympics feel like I gained lots of valuable experience.

Some highlights of the two weeks were shooting clean in the final sprint race, the first time I have done that in an International competition. Also, probably more significant, I shaved my beard that I had been working very hard on growing for over two months but with fear of looking to clean I left the mustache.

For the upcoming month I have lots of racing to look forward to which I am very excited about! On the 21^st I will be meeting up with some fellow Americans to go to Ruhpolding, Germany to race the British Championships then to Nove Mesto, Czech Republic to race the Open European Championships. After that I will be meeting up with a different crew of Americans to go to Slovenia to race in and Alpen cup race and then to Austria to race the Austrian nationals. Then finally mid February I will return to Maine.