This year's World Cup started last week in Finland, with sprint relay, sprint, middle and long distance chasing start. In the sprint relay I ran the 1st leg for Norway 2, and ran quite well the first part of the race except of 1 routechoice, but lost quite many seconds on the last part, and changed over in the 12th spot 39s behind. In the end the team got DSQ due to a wrong control on the 3rd leg. In the sprint the day after, I ran a very good sprint qualification and got a 10th place there. But in the sprint final, I struggled too much and took two bad routechoices, and ended on a disappointing 21th position. In the middle distance Saturday, I did a stable technical performance, but felt I had to slow down a bit to be able to find the controls, and I did not execute the longer legs well enough loosing time on zigzaging. So a bit rusty in nordic terrain, I was too slow and ended as 32nd. Ahead of the chasing start I was 25th, 5:34min behind. I went out in a big group, but my legs were heavy and I had no chance. Ended as 26th, with 32nd best time.
My performances at the selection races last weekend were good enough to get selected for the World Cup races in Finland next week. I will be running the sprint relay on Wednesday, for Norway team 2. After the sprint relay the World Cup continues with a mini-tour. Thursday there will be sprint qualification and sprint final in Lohja. Saturday we will run a middle distance, and Sunday the tour ends with a chasing start based on the results of the sprint and the middle distance.
This weekend was the first important weekend of this season, with selection races for the World Championships (WOC) in Estonia. I went to Estonia on Tuesday, and spent the week and weekend together with the runners from Nydalens SK and Løten. The selection races were open compititions which many other nations also used as selection races, so the starting field was tough. In the sprint Friday, I ran very well most of the race, but made a 1' (!) mistake in the middle, and therefore I ended as 4th norwegian, and 37th in total. In the middle distance I started out well, and I was in the fight untill I searched a hidden control in a V-depression for 1'. Again I ended as 4th norwegian, and 9th in total. In the long distance, I ran well most of the way, but made some smaller mistakes several places, and lost quite some time on the long routechoice legs towards the end. Ended the race as 3rd norwegian, and 6th in total. 
