My year abroad in Norway: World Championships Continued.

It's been a busy few days recently with all of the races. After the sprint races was the women's 15k pursuit race, where they make a change in skis. I had plans to go and watch this race saturday, but unfortunately, there were so many people taking the metro up to Holmenkollen it was impossible to take the metro up... That should give you a pretty good indication of how many people are watching these races. None the less it was great to see on TV too, because we could see the skiers the whole time in HD. It was a fantastic day for Norway with Marit Bjørgen taking her 2nd gold, making it 2 for 2 and Therese Johaug finishing 3rd behind Justyna Kowalczyk, who also had a fantastic race. That night we went down into the city, watched the awards ceremony, and went out to a sushi dinner. Fantastic.

Sunday, I met up with another American from New Hampshire who is also doing a year abroad in Norway named Anna Breu. We met up in the morning, took a 2 and a half hour skate ski and watched the race from various places in the woods which was fun. After that, Anna went back down to Oslo and I stayed with some friends and watched some ski jumping on the smaller hill. It was a long day of spectating and I was very tired after, but it was totally worth it. I was able to take some decent pictures sunday, and it was really cool to take a picture with the Swede, Marcus Hellner. For those of you that don't know him he is one of the best skiers on the world cup circuit and has the ability to challenge Petter Northug when he's in good shape. He was the winner of the sprint last Thursday.

I don't like to talk about Monday. I spent 3 hours waiting to get my passport stamped. I finally got it stamped, which don't get me wrong, it's a good thing, however I missed Marit Bjørgen winning her 3rd! (that's right 3rd) gold medal. That makes her 3 for 3 for gold medals here at the world championships.

Today, Marianne and I cut out of school early to watch the mens individual start 15k classic race. It was a great day for Norway once again with Eldar Rønning getting silver, and Martin Johnsrud Sundby getting bronse. It was exciting to see Sundby do so well because he is an Oslo skier. Petter Northug did not race today to conserve energy for upcoming events.

Tomorrow I will be forerunning and course patrol for the mens and womens team sprint event. It should be very exciting to watch, and one of the big events at world champs. After that, also tomorrow, I have to do the same for the nordic combined race. It should be a few hours of skiing.

Now for some of the pictures from this week.