In your second or third season of racing Olympic distance would be preferable, but as it’s your first race I’d always prefer Sprint or shorter so that it really isn’t about the distance or performance and you can focus purely on execution. Sure, on race day race-brain will kick in but that’s part of the practice
Agree with all the other points @toribath and @Tim_P raised.
Have a look a the Short Course thread when you get a chance;
