IAWLS General Assembly

Lienz, January 17, 2009


President’s Report


This report summarizes the actions undertaken by the Executive Committee after the previous report submitted to the General Assembly in Cavalese, January 25, 2008.


Relations with the Members


Membership


End of November 2008 we had 290 individual members and one associated member, representing 28 countries.


Advice for Skiers


Advice on our website: the date of the latest revision is shown under each chapter. A new text for Bieg Piastów, the Polish race that WL entered as the 15th race in the organization, has been included.
We again solicit our members: the value of the Advice depends very much on your input. Do not hesitate to send us criticisms and suggestions for improvements. The members of the IAWLS Executive Committee are experienced WL skiers; we can find the right places with blinded eyes and therefore do not see things that newcomers often discover.
The committee receives quite often requests for information in various languages about travels, accommodation, race characteristics etc. We always answer as quickly as possible.


Race Reports


During the past season we again managed to publish a report on every WL race on our website. Usually the reports are accompanied by pictures taken by participants from within the race. The latest report was on Kangaroohoppet 2008.


Website


The website contains, of course, the Advice, the race reports, the letters to WL and the official information on General Assemblies. In addition our webmaster Bengt has inserted a number of articles on items such as
  -reports on members who are assiduous WL skiers,
  -stories about funny adventures/encounters,
  -a study of the most assiduous WL nations,
  -information on new developments in WL races (entry of Bieg Piastów, improvements of
       Vasaloppet),
  -reports on XC events other than WL.
A few articles were submitted by IAWLS members whom we thank. We think that our members have appreciated these articles that brought regularly a reminder of snow and winter during the endless summer season. We invite again our members to submit their stories for publication. They may concern your unforgettable experiences in WL races and travels, or any other adventures relating to sports such as hiking.


Race Evaluation Questionnaire


We will soon make available to our members a Race Evaluation Questionnaire that will make possible to send to the committee comments about any race. At the end of the season the committee will make a synthesis of the comments and report to the members and the concerned races.

 

Relations with WL and WL races

The letter of April 2008 from IAWLS to WL


The text of this letter is visible on our website, here I give only a summary.


This new recognition involved extra work for the WL General Secretariat. We expressed our appreciation for the efficient manner in which they stamp the beautiful diplomas and send them to the happy achievers of the GWLS status. 


We informed WL on the enthusiasm of WL skiers about Marcialonga’s revolutionary start arrangement that we call the Ideal Start, and their appreciation of the very successful application by Jizerská Padesátka of the Ideal Start. This has opened a new era in WL races.


We expressed the skiers’ point of view on the candidacy of Bieg Piastów in WL. Many experienced WL skiers have skied the Polish race and consider it to be interesting and of good quality. Some practical aspects need to be improved but that can be done easily. From the skiers’ point of view the first week-end in March is the most suitable. (Bieg Piastów was accepted by WL in June 2008).


From our old list of recommendations we picked up one, namely the stickers. We regret that stickers are too often of bad quality; they tear or peel off, or are unnecessarily long. Such stickers do not serve their purpose: to represent a race all around the world. We sent flowers to Kangaroohoppet whose stickers are remarkable: only a kangaroo, symbol of the race, the word Kangaroohoppet and the year. Their length is only 3.5 cm and they never fall off!


 Relations with WL races


Concerning the Ideal Start we have corresponded with Engadin Ski Marathon, Finlandia Hiihto and Tartu Ski Maraton. ESM will introduce a new start category Elite C from 2010; they think that this will improve the start. FH and TM are still considering the idea if the Ideal Start.
Concerning the seeding system, we appreciate that Jizerská Padesátka has adopted our proposal. It consists in using the time ratio (skier’s time divided by the winner’s time) to determine the seeding in a race, on the basis of results obtained in any other WL race; a more detailed description was given in my previous President’s report. We had a long and detailed correspondence with Birkebeinerrennet. They have a very sophisticated seeding system: each year a group of statisticians including PhD students analyze the results of WL races. By identifying a group of skiers who participated in both the last BR and a certain WL race, they determine a correction factor to be applied on the times obtained in that particular race and apply that factor for the seeding in the next BR. Although it is perfect on the paper, we are unhappy with this system. In extreme cases it may even lead to unbelievable results, for example one year a penalty factor of 1.2 was applied on Finlandia Hiihto. We advocate a simple and transparent seeding system where time ratios without any correction factors are used between all WL races, in the true spirit of WL. All WL races are high level races. BR has listened to our arguments and they agree that no seeding system is perfect, including theirs. However, they say that since they apply their method to all Norwegian qualification races, they prefer to use the same to WL skiers. We understand their arguments but regret that this means that the result obtained in another WL race will undergo a correction factor before being used for the seeding in BR, and these correction factors vary from year to year. Furthermore, the seeding table is a black box, i.e. it is not based on a simple and transparent rule. We wrote also to Vasaloppet concerning their non transparent seeding system; they did not answer.


Other letters


We have written to Jizerská Padesátka about some minor problems that occurred in the 2008 race. The race organizers knew about these problems that will be corrected next year.
We had a lightning correspondence with Marcialonga’s Gloria Trettel: one email one way and two emails the other way, all in one day. We evoked three items. Next year there will be more toilets and that will be appreciated by the skiers. We found that the corridor behind the start boxes was crowded and proposed to widen it by 1m (this was the first year with the Ideal Start in Moena). Maybe a more difficult point is that the start was delayed by 15 minutes but the cut-off times were not modified; this together with the difficult weather created many drop-offs. Our understanding is that the organizers have a fixed closing time at the finish, because of the ceremony and the fireworks. It was unfortunate that precisely this year with the slow race conditions, the start had to be delayed. Normally, if the start is delayed, the cut-off times are shifted by the same amount. That happened in Gatineau Loppet, when they had to delay the start by one hour.

.Composition of the Executive Committee

The Executive Committee had nine members during the reported period. Six of them reach the end of their 3-year term. Blanka Nedvedicka and Robert Palliser have decided not to run for re-election. Bengt Karlsson, Minoru Matsuyama and Piotr Szkarlat wish to continue and run for re-election. I announced one year ago that I will retire at the end of my term. However, upon the insistence of my colleagues, I have decided that I stand for re-election.
Colin Addison and Lars Vagle have made two years and Christophe Joanblanq one year of their 3-year term.
It is useful to recruit some new committee members. We have the pleasure to propose to the General Assembly the election of Boris Petroff (FRA), Jacek Jaskowiak (POL) and Thomas Huber (GER). Their profiles are shown on the attached document.
With these new members, the committee will have three French members: Boris, Christophe and myself. The committee members do not represent any particular country, they work for all WL skiers. An important concept is the mastery of languages. Whereas all committee members speak English, it is good to have several members speaking French. France is the second largest group of IAWLS members after the USA and there are also French speaking IAWLS members in Belgium, Canada, Luxemburg and Switzerland. On the other hand my retirement is only somewhat delayed. Christophe started a 2-year assignment in Moscow (where he hopes to get snow earlier than in Western Europe and to learn Russian). Several committee members understand German but we consider as an advantage to have a German member in the committee.
At this point I have the pleasure to thank the leaving committee members Blanka and Robert for their contributions. IAWLS exists only thanks to the volunteers who work relentlessly behind the scene.

The President
Hannes Larsson

 

This page was last revised on December 16, 2008