Worldloppetskiers’ Royal Couple

June 1, 2007

Last year we presented three assiduous Worldloppet skiers who had realized at least one Master in less than one year. This year several skiers had planned to achieve the same performance but failed because of lack of snow or bad weather that resulted in race cancellations.

Recently we asked ourselves the question: which couple is the most assiduous Worldloppet couple? It was easy to find the answer: Boris and Isabelle Petroff (FRA). They cumulate 7 Masters, Boris 5 and Isabelle 2. Both are members of IAWLS.

Boris, born in 1949, and Isabelle, born in 1950, began XC skiing 30 years ago, first independently. They met at a ski camp. Boris remembers: “I still see her with her red knickers, a little lively brunette with golden eyes. It was love at first sight. Eighteen months later we were married. Cheers to XC skiing!” In 2007 Boris and Isabelle celebrated the 30th anniversary of the start of their XC skiing careers in the most noble way: Isabelle completed her 14th Worldloppet race and Boris finished his second complete tour. This will be recognized by the official title Global Worldloppet Skier, if Worldloppet adopts this IAWLS proposal at their general assembly later this year, as we all hope.

It took Boris ten years to finish his first Worldloppet passport, at a rate of one international travel per year. But he and Isabelle regularly skied six or seven XC races in France every year. Boris needed ten more years to achieve the second Master, before catching the WL fever.

Boris and Isabelle live in the Paris region. Their four children are now grown-ups, so they can devote more week-ends to skiing. Because of family and other obligations, Isabelle has been less km-thirsty than Boris. Boris is a faster skier than Isabelle, who usually needs one or two hours more to finish a race. When they ski separately, Boris takes a shower, puts on dry clothing and waits for the arrival of Isabelle. At the finish we have seen that Boris embraces Isabelle, welcomes her with “I am proud of you!”, and Isabelle radiates happiness. But it sometimes happens that they ski together from start to finish. “I am very lucky to have a wife who shares my passion for XC skiing, and is such a good skier” says Boris, and adds: “She is my Queen!”

When asked about his best remembrances, Boris cites the year when he broke a shoulder in January but wanted to ski Vasaloppet. He came to the start with zero km training and a still stiff shoulder. He wept from happiness when crossing the finish line. Vasaloppet is, apart from La Transjurassienne, the WL race that Boris has skied most often. Isabelle has made Vasaloppet only twice, she hates the bottleneck. Isabelle’s strongest remembrance is from her first Vasaloppet that she finished in 11h 11min. At the end she skied a long distance in the dark, with the track - partly covered by water that year - illuminated by small candle-like lights that showed vaguely the direction to go. “11 hours on skis, that’s long!” she stated.            

Apart from racing, Worldloppet means for the Royal Couple a myriad of friends, including Australians, Japanese, Italians, Poles and Russians. Boris’ ancestors were Russians and he speaks Russian. He and Isabelle participate each year in a Russialoppet race (a series inspired by WL) that they consider of a very high competitive level; they mostly finish amongst the last but they like the post-race celebration (the above picture was not taken in Russia but at the Sapporo Beer Garden after the 2007 race).

Boris and Isabelle have skied the Rajalta Rajalle (Border to Border) event in Finland, a 7 day and 450 km long trek between the Russian and Swedish borders. An unforgettable experience, they said. The longest race that Boris has skied was the Troll ski marathon in Norway, 120 km in a cloudy weather, slight snowfall and lateral wind. It was required to keep an average speed of 10 km/h; Boris maintained constantly his margin within half an hour and finished the race in 11h 40 min.

Boris’ merit list contains at this time 178 XC races, out of which 69 WL races. Isabelle has skied 24 WL races. Boris considers that his best season until now was last year when he performed 11 races.

We wish the Royal Couple a long and happy XC ski career!

This page was last revised on September 16, 2007