This year I can’t share any first hand accounts of what happened at the U23 World Championships in Italy. I’ve been hanging around Boulder, recovering from the Nature Valley Grand Prix and a head cold. One of the stories I failed to share earlier this year is how I botched my chance to automatically qualify for World’s not once–but three times. I won’t get into any details but here’s some advice–always finish the important races, no matter how crappy you feel. Anyway, I’m still going to share the results of this year’s U23 race. If you’re not familiar with any of these names, I’ll go ahead and highlight all the ladies who have 1) won a World Cup this year or 2) finished in the top-10 of a World Cup. Then you might wonder, wtf happened?

1 Tanja Zakelj (Slovenia) 1.35.31
2 Nathalie Schneitter (Switzerland) 2.59
3 Aleksandra Dawidowicz (Poland) 3.15
4 Nataliya Krompets (Ukraine) 3.43
5 Caroline Mani (France) 4.04
6 Emiliy Batty (Canada) 5.00
7 Julie Krasniak (France) 5.54
8 Julie Bresset (France) 6.11
9 Maaike Polspoel (Belgium) 8.05
10 Daniela Campuzano (Mexico) 8.09
11 Stephanie Wiedner (Austria) 8.12
12 Hanna Klein (Germany) 8.18
13 Chengyuan Ren (People’s Republic of China) 9.31
14 Katarzyna Solus (Poland) 10.13
15 Silke Schmidt (Germany) 12.05
16 Alexandra Engen (Sweden) 12.46
17 Laura Metzler (France) 14.08
18 Vera Andreeva (Russian Federation) 15.34
19 Jamie Dinkins (United States Of America) 16.14
20 Tereza Hurikova (Czech Republic) 17.16
21 Anja Gradl (Germany) 18.13
22 Judith Pollinger (Italy) 19.31
23 Iryna Slobodyan (Ukraine) 21.09
24 A. Serrano Rodriguez (Ecuador) 23.09

Anyway, I’m happy to see Emily Batty had a good race. It must have been those Mt. Lemon repeats earlier this year…
Well, a part of me wishes I raced in Italy yesterday but I’ll be out there next year.