Response from Vasaloppet on our open letter

July 4, 2009

We received the following response from Vasaloppet on our open letter and we appreciate the comments. We intend to provide some further comments once we have heard from our members:

"Dear Mr. Larsson.
Thank you for your comments and proposals.
After the race in 2008 where we had extreme weather situations with wet snow and difficulties for waxing and of course very soft tracks, we created a small group to investigate the situation and find a way of improving the situation in the first up-hill.
In this project we listened also to skiers who were in this last two start groups. Led 9, 10.
We found out that if we should go to group starts with no waiting in the line in the first up-hill we would use 2 hours for the starting procedure. That would shorten the maximal skiing time for the slowest skier with two hours. We can not prolong the time in finish later than 20.00 due to darkness. Most of the skiers opinion is that we should not use group starts. The proposed that we widen the first up-hill and after that analyze the situation.
The whole logistics with busses, health care, etc would be negatively effected by a changed starting procedure.

I skied myself from start as one of the last in led 9 in 2009 to the top of the first hill ( first 5 km of Vasaloppet). I talked to some of the skiers around me and all of them were satisfied with the big difference in speed compared to the year before. It took me 60 minutes to come to the top. I know that one reason beside the widening was also the good weather and skiing conditions in 2009. Also in the survey we did after Vasaloppet we had no complains about the starting procedure.
In 2004 I skied the first 4 km two days before the Vasaloppet together with I friend who is a normal 10 hour skier in Vasaloppet. We needed 30 minutes to come from the start position of led 10 to the top. This means that for a normal led 10 skier, it takes about 30-45 minutes extra because of the starting procedure.
As you also mention in your letter we have the Öppet spår with a totally different start. And skier can choose to go there to have a more space in the start. The number you mention in öppet spar is not correct. In 2004 it was about 8000 skiers on Sunday and about 4 000 on Monday.

We have decided that we will keep the present starting procedure for next year and of course analyze how it runs.

Vasaloppshälsningar/ With Vasaloppet regards

Tommy Höglund
Sportchef"

This page was last revised on February 4, 2010