Day 1 of Recap

Day 1 of racing was an up and down affair. I can honestly tell you that after the 300m prelims i was a little concerned that we only managed to get three people into the final when normally we do quite well (at least getting to the final). What was nice is what we managed to do with what we had. Erin skated great and it really sucks to end up in fourth place but she skates a better 500m anyway so that's good news. Joey is... well, Joey and that's about all I can say. It is not often, at least in senior that someone can drop an entire second from their preliminary time. When such a thing does occur it normally means the track is way faster and everyone is dropping a lot of time. I cannot describe or begin to describe the feeling of watching Joey's 300. To give you a quick run down of how close it was: Joey's unofficial (by the big board at the track) 100m was 9.36 .... Pedro's unofficial 100m was 9.38... Joey's unofficial 300m was 24.27 .... Pedro's unofficial 300m was 24.28.

Justin was the only other USA skater to earn a medal and he earned a bronze in the 15k elim. By the end of the race it was quite a smart race by Justin. There were a lot of times that we thought Justin could have avoided contact and confrontation simply by moving up but he didn't. What he DID do was with about 20 laps to go Justin went up towards the front of the pack and stayed there. The last two elims were very close calls for him but once he get to 2 laps to go I knew there was no way he wasn't getting a medal. I've raced Justin more then anyone in the US team so at that point I almost knew what to expect. On the last lap Justin was passed from third to fifth but quickly moved back up into fourth (now it's about as fast of a sprint as they could go after 74 laps) first place was long gone, but second and third were battling with about a 4 foot gap on Justin in the back stretch. One thing to know about Justin is that his straightaways are subpar but his turns are great. So once Justin hit the turn he took his hands off his knees immediately closed the 4ft gap and continued on the outside. Down the final stretch third place was tucked in behind second as if Justin was never there and Justin just ran along the outside and rolled right passed the skater to take his first world medal.