Callum Smith overcame hard conditions in having to start near the back of the field to finish 62nd in the 30km Cross Country Skiathlon. After the race Smith reflected ...  "My race was pretty tough. It was OK but maybe not my best performance ever. I started off pretty hard and I think maybe that was a little bit of a mistake. I was therefore pretty tired for the last 10km. I was just trying to stick with the leaders for as long as I could. I was isolated for a while but I don't think that makes it harder. You can ski at your own rhythm a bit, it was a pretty tough field as well."
The 30km Skiathlon is one of the hard races in the Olympics. What did Smith feel about the standard of the race? "The selection to get into this race is pretty hard, a lot of the smaller nations don't even compete. Even not to be at the back you have got to do reasonably well. I would have definitely have liked to have been in the top 60, it was OK, it was certainly not a bad race, it just wasn't my best."
Smith's time was 1:17:37 against the winners time set by Dario Cologna from Italy of 1:08:15. Cologna is six years older than Smith who was the fifth youngest in the field. Smith knows that he was at the Games to pick up experience for the future
Full ResultsÂ
Picture of Callum Smith competing earlier this season in Lillehammer - COPYRIGHT ZOOM AGENCE