Team Trials Wrap Up

Victory, Defeat, Triumph, Disappointment and Glory... that's racing.

Well, it's not easy losing a world cup spot by 0.09 seconds over four races but that's what happened. I truly believed that this was my year to take that step because for the first time in my skeleton career, I feel ready to be competitive with the best in the world. Unfortunately, I was unlucky at these team trials... what's 0.09 seconds? A blink of an eye. I competed at my best this past month and fell short of my goal by such a small margin. There are a lot of emotions that come from this situation both good and bad. I've beat myself up for a few small mistakes that could have made up the difference but I'm slowly trying to let it go. I'm not going to lie, I'm still pretty down about things but I have a vision of where I want to be mentally in the next few days. I think being back home in Virginia will help with that. I'm learning from those errors and refocusing on what's ahead. Did I mention that I'm leaving for Europe in 4 days? One of my goals in this sport is to be a champion and I realize that great athletes get knocked down several times before they reach their true potential. It's all about how they get back up that makes them great. I'm going to Europe to challenge and prepare myself the best I can so if the opportunity of world cup arises in the future, I'll be ready.

It's easy to focus on all of my mistakes the past few weeks but there are also so many things that I did better than ever. I pushed a tenth faster in Lake Placid and five hundredths faster in Park City... that makes a huge difference in down times which was apparent in Park City when I crushed my personal best by a half of a second! I had my first BIG win against the best athletes in the U.S. and I improved 4 places since last year's team trials (7th to 3rd). When you look at it that way, it seems as if it was a pretty great race series for me.