Shane Dobbin finished 14th in the 5000m speed skating race in Sochi but the Kiwi flag-bearer felt on target for his more favoured 10,000m event.
Fresh from leading the New Zealand team at the opening ceremony, Dobbin faced off with Russian Ivan Skobrev in Adler Arena as the event was contested in time trial format.
The noise from the local crowd left the long-track speed skater unable to hear coach Kalon Dobbin, hardly helping his cause as he finished with a time of 6:26.90 in the 26-strong field.
But Dobbin was relatively satisfied with the run-out, which left him on track for next week's longer event.
"It was about bang-on, actually," he said. "The result itself is probably not that good, ending up at 14th, but the goal was to set about 30.8s per lap and I [went] a little faster.
"If you were to break down the race, my last two or three laps were the quickest and that's a good sign going into the 10k."
Racing Skobrev, who finished in seventh, Dobbin had to be wary of chasing too closely, while the enthusiastic home crowd also hindered information coming from his coach.
"I had to wing it and I had to rely on hand signals and lap boards to know the time I was doing. You've just got to pretend in your own mind it was for you."
