I've been sitting here for the last three hours trying to figure out a catchy punchline or sentence to start this post and its just not coming to me today. So basically this is just what the title says, a quick look back on the incredible year that I have had over the past 365 days. Full of new friendships, adventures, experiences, lessons and oppourtunities. I will try my best not to bore you with a novel and rather just touch on the key highlights of the year. The year got off to a slow start with the bigger part of my recovery from a concussion in late December of 2015. Thankfully there were no other major injuries or crashes this year that put me off the bike for any major length of time (also a huge relief for my parents). This has been my first full year training with a pure track sprint focus and taking all road races out of my plans. It was a welcome change but it was definitely a bit strange not travelling to a new town or location each weekend through the spring and early summer for road races. The first challenge this year for me was provincial championships in early March with only a month of training under my belt. I some how managed to pull off a silver medal in the match sprint and a bronze in the kilo. Jumping a month forward to April, it was already Nationals and qualifications for Junior Worlds. I came away with two medals from the competition; a silver in match sprint and gold in the team sprint alongside Adam Lefebvre and Lucas Taylor. I was incredibly honoured to be selected to Team Canada for the 2016 Junior Worlds in Switzerland and it was by far the highlight of my year. It was a big step for me in my development as an athlete and as a person. It was a huge eye opener for me in terms of how much work it really takes to be at the top of your sport and I will use that experience going forward as motivation to keep pushing. Some of my favourite memories from this year came from those three weeks and I think the best of all was being beside Stefan when he won the kilo world title. I got home at the end of July and took most of August away from training to just be a kid again for a few weeks and enjoy whatever part of summer vacation I had left before school started up again in September. I spent most of my time working at our local bike shop and with family. It seemed like August flew by and before I knew it I was starting my final year of high school which is incredibly bittersweet, I cant believe that its grade 12 already! By this time I am back to training full time again and preparing for upcoming competitions that included the Milton International Challenge and the first Ontario Cup of the 2016-2017 Track Season over the next few months. (Blog continues after pictures) Many things to be thankful for this year and I can't thank everyone enough for everything this year. Some special thank you's go out to Michael Suraci and the OCA for all the support this year, to my coaches Rob Good, Samantha Eyles and Joseph Veloce for believing in me and constantly pushing me to be a better version of myself everyday, on and off the bike. And a big thank you to my my parents, I wouldnt be here today without you guys. You have been my biggest supporters since day one and have never stopped believing in me and allowing me to do what I love to do.
Your past is a story and its up to you to write the future. I can't wait to see what is ahead for me in the coming months and years. I am ready for 2017! Happy New Year everyone! Cheers, Nick The final race for me of 2016 was this past weekend at the first Ontario Cup of the winter, this was my first opportunity to really test the legs and see how the hard work over the past few months would play out. With this being an O-cup and only a one day event, the only sprint event for junior men was the keirin competition as it does not take as long to complete as a match sprint tournament. The keirin was last on the schedule for the day of competition so it allowed me to sleep in for a change on raceday which doesnt happen very often. After finally getting out of bed at around 10 am I went through a slightly adjusted pre-race routine that included a dynamic warmup and as always, lots of food. We arrived at the track just after 1pm and began to get bikes and rollers ready to go for warmup. Over the past few weeks we have also been working on establishing a new warmup and better routines that help us to be better prepared at the start line. For anyone that didn't know, the rules of the keirin have also changed recently, where instead of eight laps it is now six and the derny pulls off half a lap earlier extending the sprint to three laps instead of two and a half, one final major rule change is that you can now come up beside the derny before it pulls off as long as you do not pass the front wheel. Ready to go at the start line, I drew position number one on the track for the first round. With only two heats this would be the semi-final where top three riders in each heat go to the 1-6 final and bottom three go to 7-12 final so all I needed to do was place inside the top three to secure a spot in the medal ride. I ended up in second place after the first round and secured my spot in the final. After about 45 minutes it was time for the final, alongside my buddy Je'Land Sydney we took positions 4 and 5 behind the derny. Je'Land made the early move to the front and I followed him to the front, the speed really kicked up with a lap and a half to go and it was a race the line, I took second position and Je'Land took the win. It was a great day of racing in Milton and it was a great gauge to see some solid progress being made as well as some areas for improvement. Onto the next race in January. |
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