7 AM:  Vincent gets up and ready for breakfast. Although he does not eat bacon and eggs and has muesli and orange juice, he does not pay too much attention to what he eats. The breakfast room at the hotel is already crowded because almost all athletes in the IBU Cup sleep and eat at this hotel. After breakfast he packs the things he needs for the competition.

8 AM:  The team leaves for the stadium on time. There, they test their skis. Coach Peter Thomé has been at the wax cabin which the team shares with the Dutch team, to get the skis ready.

9 AM: Zeroing starts and since Vincent is in the first start group, he and teammate Thorsten Lange go directly to the shooting range. The Belgian team has only their coach with them to help the athletes and he continues to work on the skis. Thus, the athletes assist each other with the zeroing. First, Vincent shoots; he has about 12 minutes for zeroing. Then it is Thorsten’s turn and Vincent looks through the scope and advises his teammate.

9:30 AM: The first part of zeroing is over and Vincent and Thorsten are done. Vincent gets his skis and covers the competition course almost two times. He looks out for tricky parts on the track, icy spots, and where to speed up. Afterwards he continues his warmup in a flatter place.

10:05 AM:  Vincent gets his competition skis from the wax cabin, goes to the starting area and gets the skis marked. He already had his rifle checked and marked earlier.

10:23 AM: Start time for Vincent; he hopes to qualify for the World Cup today. Two years ago he was in the World Cup but last winter he had to focus on his studies of electro technical engineering and took a break. Thus, he has to re-qualify, which means he can only be 20 percent slower than the average time of the top three athletes. He explains about the competition: “Everything went well for me. During the competition, I think all the time, normally about the shooting. For example, I try to get my breathing under control during the last downhill. But I also think about what I can achieve on this day. For example, when I shoot 1-1 (one mistake per shooting bout), I get motivated from thinking where I could finish. Also, if a good athlete starts right after me and does not pass me until after the shooting range, I know that I am making good speed. The thing is to not get pressured from thoughts like that.”

Vincent makes one mistake each during the prone and standing shooting stages. “My shooting is half-automated, but I only shoot about 1/5th of what the good athletes shoot during the year, so the process is only automated to 1/5^th.

In general, training in a small team is very different to the training of the top teams like Germany or Norway. The fact that no one on the Belgium team earns money from the sport, not even the coach, is probably the biggest difference. All athletes either are students or work full time. “I study and Thorsten (Langer) is in the Military, which includes deployments. But I respect the achievements of Pascal (Langer) the most. He works 40 hours a week in a wood-processing company, has a wife and two kids and still performs really well.”

Almost 11 AM:  After 30:48.2, Vincent crosses the finish line. His teammate Pascal immediately comes up to him and congratulates. “Pascal did the math right away and forecasted that I qualified. It really was enough in the end and now I will go to Östersund!” His time puts Vincent in 100^th place. After his finish he quickly changes into some dry, warm clothes in order to not get a cold and then cheers on his teammates who are still on the course. Then he takes a slow run back to the hotel.

1:15 PM:  Lunch. Vincent sits with athletes from a different team, today Toni Lang and Daniel Graf from the German squad. He does that on purpose and explains: “Of course I like to spend time with my teammates but we are such a small team, especially in the World Cup, and it can get lonely at times. That’s why I like to know other athletes and coaches. Often, my teammates and members of other small teams sit together, that normally is a lot of fun and I get to practice my English.” After lunch, Vincent takes a nap for about 1 ½ hours.

3.30 PM:  Vincent and his teammates return to the stadium and pack everything for the ride home or to Östersund. It is already completely dark in Idre at this time with the only light in the stadium and on the tracks coming from floodlights.

4.15 PM: The skis and wax is securely stored in the team’s bus. Vincent puts on his skis again and takes advantage of the good conditions with a few laps of easy cross-country skiing. “As a kid I did Orienteering and discovered cross-country skiing at the age of 16. Since then, that has been my passion, even though my family normally does Alpine skiing. Unfortunately, at that time there were no good cross country coaches in Belgium; Peter was not working as a coach back then. So I went to the Vosges Mountains (France) with another group for five days and that’s when I found out what really is possible. That was the first time I was video-recorded and someone told me the mistakes I was making. For others, that is a normal kind of training, but back then, for me it was not.”

5.10 PM Back at the hotel all of the Belgian athletes take a shower.

6:20 PM: Dinner. The Belgian team sits with Uiloq Slettemark from Greenland and Sarah Murphy from New Zealand. After the finish their dinner, they keep talking until about 7.30 pm

7.45 PM   The team meets in Coach Peter Thomé’s room of for a final talk about the competition weekend. The coach is proud of the team spirit and asks the athletes to keep this up over the season. He also talks about the financial situation of the team. Thomé explains. “For about two months now we have a shooting range at home and the boys could shoot more in the time leading up to the season than they ever could before and that already shows. The IBU promised us some money from their development budget to extend the shooting range we already paid for ourselves. At the moment, we have enough ammunition to make it through the season and it really helps us to get 5000 rounds from the IBU Equipment Pool.”

8.30 PM: The meeting is over and Vincent and the others put the first bags into the bus so that they can leave early the next morning. Then Vincent watches some TV and gets ready for bed.

9.50 PM:  Lights are out; it is time to sleep.