With five medals at the Canadian National Cross Country Ski Championships in the past two years, Janelle Greer is no stranger to success in the sport, but her strong performance at this year's World Junior trials still came as a surprise to the young skier.

The Yukon Ski Team member finished in the top ten in each of her three races at the event, which was highlighted by a bronze medal victory in the Junior Women's 1.1-km sprint race.

'It was exciting,' Greer said. 'It was in the sprints and once I made it to the A' final I realized I could get a medal in it, but I definitely wasn't expecting it. That was the first time I went to that big of a competition, so I didn't really know how I would place.'

At the trials, held in Duntroon, Ont. from Jan. 3-6, Greer raced against girls who were up to four years older than her. Her goal was to finish in the top ten at every event and she achieved that by coming in 10th in the mass-start continuous pursuit race, third in the sprint race and sixth in the individual start classic race.

Greer, 15, has been involved in the sport since she was two. She often skied with her parents and siblings, David and Brittany, who are also accomplished skiers on the Yukon Ski Team.

Despite being so young, Greer has had to deal with an ongoing injury in both of her shoulders for more than two years now. The injury was first aggravated when she was roller skiing, which is a form of training members of the Yukon Ski Team do during the off-season.

Since then Greer has been to several different physiotherapists, but initially none of the prescribed treatments helped solve the problem. Earlier in the season, the injury was at its worst, forcing Greer to stop training with ski poles for a whole month. The injury also kept her from taking part in the first competition of the season in the Noram race series, held in Silver Star, B.C.

However, things have improved since then and Greer is currently making progress with the injury, using rubber bands to exercise and strengthen the muscles in between her scapulas.

She still can't do certain training exercises with the team and always has to ice both shoulders after she skis, but Greer is confident in being able to fix the problem.

She said she has learned to race through the injury.

'When I am racing I don't really think about it, so I don't feel it, but in the warm-up it hurts,' she said. 'At world juniors it hurt quite a bit, especially before the last race, but when I was racing I didn't pay attention to it. I guess my mind doesn't even go there really, I just don't think about other pain, other than being really tired.'

The trials were her first outside competition this season and Greer said winning the sprint event came as a pleasant surprise because traditionally, she has been a better classic technique skier.

In the sprint event, Greer competed in four races in total. The first featured an individual start format, where the top 30 times qualify for the second race. Greer placed 17th and moved on to the second race, which she was the most concerned about, but ended up leading the whole way through.

There were six skiers competing in each of the two heats for the third race and the top three in both qualified for the A' final, while bottom three made the B'.

Greer finished the race in third, just edging out another skier by a small margin. In the final race, Greer was third for the entire way through.

Greer has also been successful racing in Whitehorse, finishing in first place in the juvenile girls' category for both Don Sumanik races.

In December's 3.75 Freestyle technique, she finished with a time of 0:13:44.3. Last Saturday's Classic Mass start, Greer had a time of 0:12: 58.8, which was 32.1 seconds ahead of her closest competitor.

Greer will compete at the 2008 nationals and her goal is to finish in the top three in every race.

Last year, in addition to winning four medals, which included a bronze, two silvers and one gold, she was also awarded the aggregate award, which is given to the best overall skier.

Greer said the bronze medal win at the trials means as much to her as her performance at nationals in 2007.