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Written by Brian Olsen
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Saturday, 13 November 2004 00:00 |
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Location: Beitostølen, NOR
This afternoon, I competed in my first competition of the season. There is no better way to start a season than to compete in a mass start competition against the best in the world amidst howling winds and poor snow conditions. Though I certainly gave everything in the race today, it was really just an interval workout for me, albeit with some competition.
Last night, I watched a few mass start competitions from last season’s World Cup. The key to a mass start is the shooting. The least important thing is how fast one skis on the first loop. Remember last season’s World Championships in Oberhof. Lars Berger went out like a banshee with a sizeable lead entering the shooting range. He missed two targets, and left the penalty loop placed in the twenties. The first loop had no bearing on his eventual silver-medal winning performance.
Knowing the above, I started with ease, skiing most of the first loop at an easy pace right at the back of the pack. On the hills, I passed athletes who had gone out far too fast as if they were standing still, even though I was still going at an easy pace.
In the shooting range was chaos. The wind was blowing and gusting hard. It was difficult to hold my rifle steady, even in prone. I took my time and calmed myself enough to miss only three out of the ten prone shots. My good shooting netted me a good preliminary place after the second shooting.
It was a spectacular race because so much was going on. There was no time to think. With the wind, the mass start, the extremely icy conditions, and all of the other athletes, it was overwhelming. But all of this made me simply go into auto-pilot and my body and mind skied and shot like I had trained it to. It was a great feeling.
In the standing position, things were a bit different than in prone. It was all about luck. Some athletes came into the range when there was a lull in the gusty wind. During both of my standing bouts of shooting, I enjoyed fierce gusts of wind. One of my shots, I was actually aiming at a different target than the one that went down. Only three hits out of ten is nothing to be happy about, but my final shooting result of 10 out of 20 was a bit above average for the field.
I skied decently, in terms of technique and pacing, though my body was still tired from the intensity I had done the week before. By the finish, I was happy because the race was such a rush, and I learned a few things that I can put to use during the season. Plus, I was strong enough to accept my mistakes during the race and ski all of the way to the finish, instead of getting frustrated and quitting.
The final result was far from spectacular, but honestly the results list was not important to me. Of course, I would like to win every race that I enter, but a good result in November means very little.
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