Continental Cups

Recently I traveled to Park City, Utah for the first continental cups of the season. For those of you not familiar, continental cups are the step below world cups. With these being my first continental cups ever I did not know what to expect. To sum it up, it was eye opening! 58 competitors from France, Germany, Austria, Japan, Russia, Italy, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Canada, and Switzerland competed for points. The top 30 in every continental cup earns points. 30th place earns 1 point and 1st place earns 100 points. I went into the competition with my sites set on earning points. The first day started very well. Every comp starts with a trial jump that doesn't count then goes on to a competition jump that counts. After trial I was in 4th place out of 58 competitors. That jump was 93.5 meters and unfortunately my comp jump was 90.5 meters. This was still a very good jump. I started the race in 21st place and tried to hang into the top 30. I had a great race but finished in 37th place about 45 seconds out of points. I was shocked because everyone was so fast. The next day I was a little worn out and had a rough one. I finished in 50th place. I am very motivated after seeing how tough the competition is at this level of my sport. My goal is to work hard enough to be able to compete at this level by the end of the year. My next focus is on the world junior championships held in Liberec, Czech Republic in January. Ill have updates on that in a few weeks. Thanks-Ben