Sean Crooks
Sean Crooks 
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| nation |
 Canada
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| birthday | July 8, 1983 | ||||||||||||
| place of birth | Thunder Bay, Ontario | ||||||||||||
| size | 175 cm | ||||||||||||
| Weight | 75 kg | ||||||||||||
| Career | |||||||||||||
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| job | college student | ||||||||||||
| discipline | sprint | ||||||||||||
| society | Big Thunder Nordic | ||||||||||||
| Trainer | Dave Wood , Eric de Nys | ||||||||||||
| status | resigned | ||||||||||||
| End of career | April 2010 | ||||||||||||
| Medal table | |||||||||||||
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| Placements in the cross-country skiing world cup | |||||||||||||
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| last change: December 15, 2010 | |||||||||||||
Sean Crooks (born July 8, 1983 in Thunder Bay ) is a retired Canadian cross-country skier .
Crooks' hometown of Thunder Bay is located in the middle of a ski area which, among other things, hosted the 1995 Nordic World Ski Championships . Therefore, Crooks had early contact with skiing, which he initially practiced as a Nordic combined skier . In this discipline, he first took part in a major international event at the age of 13, the Junior World Championships in Canmore . After Big Thunder , the ski jumping hill of Thunder Bay, was closed, Crooks changed the sport in 1998 and became a cross-country skier. He quickly achieved successes in the junior division at national level; even with the adults he reached several top ten placements at the Canadian Championships. Crooks' greatest success as a junior was eleventh place in the sprint at the 2003 Junior World Championships in Sollefteå , Sweden , where he left the eventual World Cup winner Martin Johnsrud Sundby behind.
In December 2005, Crooks made his debut in the cross-country skiing world cup : At the sprint in Vernon he was part of the national group (athletes from the host country who received a kind of wild card ) and placed 25th as the best Canadian. With this, he received the first points at his first World Cup race, which are awarded to the best 30. In other missions this season, Crooks did not build on this result, but he was nominated as one of four sprinters for the 2006 Winter Olympics. Shortly before the games, he was found to have high hemoglobin levels during a training check-up and he was given a five-day ban. In Turin he was eliminated in qualifying just under 32nd and thus missed the quarter-finals. In the 2006/07 season, the Canadian started in the first edition of the Tour de Ski . There he achieved the best World Cup result of his career to date with a 16th place in the opening sprint in Munich . In the following winters, Crooks received more World Cup appearances and established himself in the Canadian national sprint team, but he never managed to break into the international top. He achieved his best result in the World Cup as 15th in January 2009 in Whistler at the “dress rehearsal” for the Winter Olympics there one year later .
In December 2009, the Canadian Olympic Trials were due, the national elimination races for the starting places at the Olympic Winter Games. Crooks had not contested a World Cup race earlier in the season in order to focus on his goal of achieving a top position at the Olympics. At the trials, however, he fell in both sprint races - once in the qualification, once in the final - so that he was not nominated for the Olympic Games. In the further course of the season, the Canadian completed a number of World Cup races, in which he reached the points several times. In mid-April 2010 he announced the end of his career; For four years he had resolved to complete his career in 2010. In a blog post on his website, he stated:
“Four years ago, I believed that I could be one of the world's fastest sprinters. I was cracking the top 20 in numerous World Cups and saw medals in my sights. Over the next four seasons, I would have identical results each year. There was no major improvement and I was getting older. I now know that I will never be the fastest man on the World Cup, and that is fine. [...] ”
“Four years ago I believed that I could be one of the fastest sprinters in the world. I finished in the top 20 in numerous World Cup races and saw medals within reach. For the next four seasons, I got the same results every year. There was no major improvement and I was getting older. Now I know that I'll never be the fastest man in the World Cup and that's a good thing. [...] "
After his career, Crooks studied medicine at the University of Calgary .
Web links
- Personal website with self-introduction and blog
- Sean Crooks in the database of the International Ski Federation (English)
- Sean Crooks in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Crooks, Sean |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Canadian cross-country skier |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 8, 1983 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Thunder Bay, Ontario |