Sean Crooks
Sean Crooks ( born July 8, 1983 in Thunder Bay) is a former Canadian cross-country skier.
Crooks ' hometown Thunder Bay is located in a ski resort, which, inter alia, the Nordic World Ski Championships was held in 1995. Therefore, Crooks had early contact with the ski, which he first practiced as a Nordic skier. In this discipline, he took at the age of 13 years for the first time at a major international event in part, the Junior World Championships in Canmore. After Big Thunder, the ski jump of Thunder Bay, has been closed, moved Crooks 1998, the sport was cross-country skiers and. Quick get him on a national level success at junior level; and among adults it reached several top - ten finishes at the Canadian championships. Crooks ' greatest success as a junior was the eleventh rank in the sprint at the Junior World Championships in 2003 in the Swedish Sollefteå, where he among other things, the future World Cup winner Martin Johnsrud Sundby behind.
In December 2005 Crooks debuted in the Cross Country World Cup: The Sprint in Vernon, he was part of the national group ( athletes from the host country who get a kind of wildcard) and placed itself as the best Canadian on the 25th place. He received the first points to be awarded to the top 30 in his first World Cup race. For further inserts this season Crooks not followed up on this result, yet he was nominated as one of four sprinters for the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, where he was eliminated just as 32 in qualifying and thus missed the quarter-finals. In the season 2006/ 07 the Canadians competed in the first edition of the Tour de Ski. There he achieved a 16th place in the season opener Sprint in Munich until then best World Cup result of his career. In the following winters Crooks was indeed more World Cup bets and established himself in the Canadian Sprint National Team, but he never made a breakthrough in the international forefront. His best result in the World Cup as he scored 15 in January 2009 in Whistler at the " dress rehearsal " for a year later held there Winter Olympics.
In December 2009, the Canadian Olympic Trials were at the national selection race for the starting places at the Olympic Winter Games. Crooks had previously denied in the season no World Cup races in order to focus on his goal to retain one of the top places at the Olympics. In the trials, however, he fell in two sprint races - even in qualifying, once in the finals - so he was not nominated for the Olympic Games. In the rest of the season the Canadians completed a few World Cup races in which he repeatedly reached the points. Mid-April 2010 he announced end of his career; he had meant to finish his career in 2010 for four years. In a blog entry on his website he declared:
" Four years ago, did I Believed I could be one of the World 's fastest sprinters. I was cracking the top 20 in World Cups and saw Numerous 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 knowthat I will never be the fastest man on the World Cup, and did is fine. [ ... ] "
"Four years ago, I believed that I could be one of the fastest sprinters in the world. I came across numerous World Cup races in the top 20 and saw medals in reach. Over the next four seasons each year I had the same results. There was no greater improvement and I got older. Now I know that I 'll never be the fastest man in the World Cup and that is a good thing. [ ... ] "
After his career Crooks studied medicine at the University of Calgary.