Post Nationals Reflections

Well, there goes my competition season. It seems like it went so fast! I just finished my race day last week, and honestly, things went better than I expected. My expectations going into the competition were to make it out of my first heat, and then probably lose. But, I did a bit better than that.

After taking 24th in time trials, I got placed in a heat with my friend and only other Team Summit member competing with me, Matthew. The first heat went well – I played it pretty conservative, staying on first place’s tail but not attempting to pass. I took an easy second place and qualified for the next round, which was 1/8th finals. In the video below, I’m in gate 3.

Qualified for the next round, I knew I had a chance at taking top 2, but it would be difficult. I almost fell right out of the start, but that proved to eventually help me, as all three other riders fell on the second turn, allowing me to pass and take the lead. Unfortunately, I ended up getting passed by one person at the finish line, as I kind of let up at the finish line and didn’t land the final jump very well. But, it didn’t really matter to me as I was qualified for the next round anyways.

I knew I was pretty much screwed in the third round. I was racing some of the top seeded riders, and they were all extremely good. Out of the start, I fell behind, but still was relatively close to everyone else.  The guy in front of me took a fall, and as I tried to pass him, he jumped up in front of me and I got knocked back. I knew then that my nationals was over, but I still finished the race, throwing a grab over the final jump.

As a whole, Nationals was a great experience and I had a great time. I finished 15th overall, and I’m really happy about that. At the start of the season, one of my goals was top 20, and I accomplished that, so I’m happy. I’m in an interesting position for next year, as I have many options. I could stay in my age class, and move up to the Junior (16/17) age group, I could enter Open class, or I could even go compete in the Rev Tour with competitions around the country. We’ll have to see…

I’ll be publishing a blog post about my snowboarding season as a whole soon, as well as putting together a season edit comprised of all my best clips of the season.