Casey Smith Biathlete: Estonia

After Antholz we flew from Munich, Germany to Tallinn, Estonia and then drove to Otepaa, Estonia for the IBU Open European Championships. While this is technically the European Championships realistically it is the championships of the IBU cup so some pretty important races. The first race was an 20km Individual, the individual is different from most races because instead of skiing penalty loops there is a 1 minute penalty added to your time for every missed shot. The day of the individual it was very windy which made the shooting difficult. I had 5 misses which is not that good of shooting for me but was about average for the field that day because of the wind. The skiing was difficult, I did not feel that bad but just did not ski that fast. I would try my best but could just not keep up with people that skied past. Our wax was off as well which did not help the ski time any. I ended up placing 61st.

Two days later was the sprint race. I thought that this race went pretty well. I shot 0,1 and my skiing felt good, the best it has since I have been in Europe. Unfortunately having a good race and what felt like fast skiing for me was just not enough to do well. I placed 68th and was 3:07 back from the winner. Not being in the top 60 means that I did not qualify for the pursuit race which is bummer because they are always really fun races and in North America we never get to do real pursuit races.

Coming away from this set of races I am a little upset that I could not have had a better result but am also ready to train more so that I can come back next year and do some butt kicking!

On the flight to Estonia I somehow got a gold status ticket even though I only have enough air miles to be a silver member. As a gold member I had access to the executive lounge which had lots of free hot tasty food.