World Cup 3 – Stronger Faster Better

Hochfilzen - The weather coming in

Now that is it for the first trimester, 3 World Cups done and overall I am satisfied! The whole week in Ridnaun (ITA) I was feeling pretty atrocious and a good reason for that would be, we were training at 1400m and for certain I could feel the altitude! Two days before my WC sprint event we departed for Hochfilzen (AUT) to rest and prepare for competition.

Hochfilzen- Sprint 10km

Once again the World Cup field just keeps getting tighter! I placed 81^st    (Beating The Overall WC Leader)     2.23 min behind Tarjei Boe (NOR) who took the gold. There is basically someone every 2 seconds, knowing that you have to give absolutely everything on your last lap! The weather on the day wasn’t in favour of those who started first, it was dumping down snow 2 hours before and stopped after my second shooting, I was very lucky to be bib number 79! Overall the race went really well, I was happy to only shoot 1 penalty and to be 9.6% behind the leader, a careers best! This is my first year out of the Juniors so my future is looking good!

Hochfilzen training, Left- Alex Almoukov Right - Tarjei Boe ( Winner)

Hochfilzen - Dumping Snow

After the race we packed our bags and left for Obertiliach (AUT) where my team mate Lucy has been competing in the IBU Cups. We had some decent drift action in the car on the way and not because we wanted to be like ‘Brian’ of (Fast and Furious) but for the reason that it was absolutely ejecting down with snow. On one of the climes our wheels decided to completely loose traction and our Van was slowly losing speed, when it seemed to nearly come to a complete stop I thought a good idea would be to jump out and push the car to keep its momentum. What seemed to be a good idea at the time, to think now was absolutely stupid! As soon as I jumped out I felt my hip hit the ground like a sack of potatoes! Without a question when I was on the ground I was thinking of how stupid and injudicious I was, what seemed to be 5km/h was probably around 15-20km/h. After giving my dad a fright and being a little bruised I was all good to have a laugh about it!

We are in Obertiliach (AUT) for 6 days, then we will fly to Russia for Christmas and New Year’s. This was a real good first trimester, I am skiing faster then ever and I hope that after New Year’s I can show even better results!

An athlete has to finish under 15% at least once in the trimester to keep his qualification at World Cup. I have made a graph (with the help from my Biathlon Dutch friends) on my percentages from the first 4 WC races.

2011 WC Trimester Compared To 2010

Thank you for reading and I wish you a Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year!

Alex