The U.S. team rode great... The course was a fair size, quite technical, but the most difficult was the tight time allowed. Hardly any rider could manage to jump within the time allowed. In the first round, Reed Kessler was one of the only to find her way around with a clear round and no time faults. Both Karen and Jessie had no jumping faults, but just one on the clock. We were leading by only one fault at the end of the round. Right behind was the Netherlands, then France. Obviously, pressure was on in the second round. Again, everyone was awesome. Catherine Pasmore had 2 down, Karen just one time fault, Reed another clear! and Jessie had five faults (one rail and one time fault). Unfortunately, this put us just behind the Netherlands, who had two clear and two rounds with just one time fault, a pretty stellar round for them. But everyone was happy.
Katie was talking to all of us after, and was reviewing the calculations of the faults, and she figured out that if we had gone with no time faults, that we would have won. The lesson here was how important it is to be within the time, no matter how tight. As we've all heard before, Katie repeated, time faults lose championships. It is something we all realize we need to work on, really committing to a forward pace with efficient turns and slick tracks.
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