The Vasaloppet in Sweden is a 90-km classic cross-country ski race that is the most popular and oldest in the history of classic Nordic skiing. It goes tomorrow, Sunday, March 3, 2013, at 8:00 in the morning in the city of Sälen. Every year there are about 15,000 participants who ski from Sälen and Mora as they traverse forests, hills, and frozen lakes.
Last year about half of them crashed, as shown in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=LohiNobXNs0
Of interest: The current record time for men is 3.38.41 (Jörgen Brink, 2012) and for ladies 4.08.24 (Vibeke Skofterud, 2012). A new Volkswagen car awaits those who break the men’s or ladies’ record.
Lost and Found
I would normally suggest checking the Lost and Found at Pocaterra hut, but it’s closed right now. So if anyone comes across Rich’s toque, send me an email:
Hi Bob,
I lost my SWIX hat given to me by a friend in Norway on Lynx at PLP today. It is black with logo for SWIX and Norway flag and some other norwegian word – MIXSLUCAN?
I was up there this am at 7:30 to 11 am – Sat March 2
tough wax day but we put down 30 km
Not sure if you have a lost and found portion to your hugely successful website but really love that hat!
rich
Btw, winner Jörgen Aukland used no grip wax! A few others have tried this before, but he’s the first to win. Just imagine double poling all that way.
Cool video! Thanks Bob.
Just as a note: The reason the record was set last year was very hard and icy tracks.
It is because of that these poor guys were crashing in the video on the relatively easy and absolutely straight downhill.
p.s. Brian McKeever was 45th this year. Which is a very good result considering the strength of the field.
I mean, are you planning to go to the Vasaloppet – I’m sure you’d love to go do that hard core training with the gal in the training video!
Regarding the toque- check at the park info centre.
Hillarious! This video should be good for the egos of beginner skiers. For your imformation local skier Brian McKeever will be on the start line .Even with his vision problem a top twenty-five is possible.
To get in shape for next year’s Vasaloppet, start training like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caE3SI56fBs (it’s one of the suggested choices after you click Vasaloppet)
Are you going, Peter?
Heck, I’d be satisfied with the training, forget the loppet.
Maybe that’s why so many of those guys crashed-they were thinking about the training!