The season is finally over. This time of year is always bitter sweet for me. On the one hand I get to go home, relax, and be a normal kid for a few weeks; but at the same time the season is over. All of my blood, sweat, and tears of the past eleven months now mean nothing. Of course I'm happy with how my hard work paid off, but now the year is over and next month I start completely anew.

Even knowing that intense summer training will start again in two weeks my mentality  is refreshed and ready to bring on the Olympic season. At World Team Championships in Heerenveen team USA brought home a bronze for both the ladies and the men's team... a first in history!  The ladies were competing head to head with Canada for 3^rd.  The U.S and Canadian teams have been battling for years now and, unfortunately, team USA has come close, but no cigar to a 3^rd place finish over and over again for far too long.

All season we knew that we were strong enough to compete with team Canada in the relay, but through mistakes, falls, and DQ's we were unable to bring home the 3^rd place prize on the overall world cup circuit; and then another disappointment at world championships. But this competition was different. We all entered the last weekend of the season knowing that this was it. We were strong to enough to win and it was finally our time.

The team consisted of myself, Kimberly Derrick, Jessica Smith, Lana Gehring, and Alyson Dudek. Right from the start we showed the other teams we were coming by tying for first in the repechage round. This is something like a prelim that decides which teams will race in the final and we were paired with Canada, Italy, and the Netherlands. The other teams were strong but at the end it came down to the U.S and Canada. Unfortunately we had a fall on the 2^nd rotation on the relay, but still had enough points to tie for first. We were feeling good going into the final the next day.

The final at World Teams is unlike any other final in speedskating because there are always four different teams. This year it was China, Korea, USA, and Canada. But each skater only skates each distance once. There are four 1000m races where the coaches match up their skaters to those from the other countries one by one. So each race has one skater from each country, there are four 1000m races raced with the skaters being chosen at the time of the race depending on what the coaches decide. The same format follows for the 500m. However there is only one 3000m race and it has two skaters from each country. The winner of each race gets 5 points for their team, second place get 3, third gets 2, and fourth gets 1. A disqualification gets no points so the biggest goal is to race safe. The relay is worth double points and is also the tie breaker if there are two teams with the same number of points.

Going into the day we knew that our team had a slightly stronger 1000m and the Canadians had a slightly stronger 500m. We started out the 1000's strong going into the 500m rounds five points ahead of Canada. Canada gave us a run for our money in the 500, but after the 3k it all came down to the relay with the winner of that race winning overall. Everyone was tired after a grueling race such as the 3000m, but the USA ladies held it together to the end of the race finishing 3^rd after a stumble and fall from the Canadian team.

The win over Canada was bittersweet because of their fall, but this was the closest the points have been for the U.S the last three years I've been on the team. I'm extremely proud of what we accomplished because I know that we deserve it. Long live good sportsmanship and team rivalry! See you next season!

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