IAWLS General Assembly
Bedřichov, January 13, 2007
President’s Report
This is the report which describes the Executive Committee’s actions during the period following the previous General Assembly in Lienz, January 21, 2006.
Actions resulting from the Lienz General Assembly
Open Forum
There was a suggestion by Gary Fohr to add a chatroom on the IAWLS website. Worldloppet had an Open Forum which Secretary General Angelo Corradini suppressed. We can guess the reasons: you get not only useful letters but also rubbish. The situation is the same for IAWLS. It is difficult to keep the Open Forum clean 24h/24h from contributions which have nothing to do with skiing and may create damage to the image of IAWLS. Therefore we are reluctant to implement an Open Forum.
Skiers who wish to find a partner to share a car or an accommodation usually operate via their club or group of friends. Concerning questions on travel, accommodation, characteristics of a race etc., we remind that we have the section Advice on our website. And the Committee is happy to answer any questions which can be sent in 9 languages.
Code of Conduct
Colin Addison suggested that there should be a uniform skier Code of Conduct governing behaviour during races. We can identify some bad behaviours:
-cheating, e.g. cutting off part of the track,
-taking off the skis and walking past a bottleneck,
-skating in a classic race when the grip becomes bad,
-occupying all tracks when there is space on the right side, thus hampering overtaking,
-trampling the skis or pushing slower skiers in the ditch, when overtaking.
The three first types of behaviour are forbidden by the race rules. But the organizers cannot have controllers everywhere. On the other hand, the temptation to walk would not exist if there were no bottlenecks, and that is one of our big recommendations to race organizers.
There is no excuse for skating when the grip disappears. We have sometimes been surprised to observe the lack of reaction of the honest skiers who push on their arms with all the energy that is left, when seeing some skiers skate. They should express their disapproval noisily to throw shame on the cheats.
At the end we did not see the usefulness of concretizing these ideas in a document. The correct behaviour is obvious. IAWLS members are WL skiers and by definition nice people who do not need a Code of Conduct. The aggressive skiers who exhibit the fifth type of behaviour are probably not WL skiers and they will never read a Code of Conduct anyhow.
For all these reasons, the Committee did not undertake the writing of a Code of Conduct. Everybody will agree on one recommendation: be courteous!
And if you see cheats, whistle them!
Other actions
All other questions presented at the Lienz General Assembly were answered immediately, or are documented in other parts of this report.
Race reports
During the past season the Committee managed to post on the website a report on every WL race, mostly with a picture taken during the race. We included a selection of results of IAWLS members. They were sometimes presented in decreasing order of times, to show that we are citizen skiers whose goal is to participate, not to win, except in the sense of the famous Dolomitenlauf motto “Everybody is a winner over him/herself”.
Global Worldloppet Skier (GWLS)
The President was invited to make a presentation of this proposal to the WL Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Lienz, June 17, 2006. Reminder: our survey conducted in 2005 received 52 answers showing an overwhelming support (92%) for the idea of a special recognition for those who have skied all 14 WL races. At the Lienz AGM there were no objections on this proposal but voting was not possible because the item was not placed in the list of items requiring voting. The official acceptance of the GWLS project is postponed to the 2007 WL AGM. The chances of acceptance look very good.
Advice for Skiers
The Advice for a few races has been updated this year. Is it possible that the texts are so good that we receive only compliments? The Committee solicits again comments from the members about the quality and the type of information contained on these web-pages. The Tartu Maraton is a good example: an Estonian skier pointed out that you can reach Tartu not only via Tallinn but also via Riga. Flying to Riga may be a good alternative to Central European skiers and possibly others.
Letter to Worldloppet
It is a tradition that we write every year a letter to WL with comments and suggestions. You find all these letters on our website. In the 2006 letter we informed WL that IAWLS had become a registered association in September 2005. We then picked up some recent requests:
-provide country flags on the bibs
-provide good stickers for the skis
-provide regular weather reports
-improve organization of food stations (we sent flowers to Engadin Ski Marathon and Birkebeinerrennet for their interesting innovations)
-organize the start so as to avoid bottlenecks (we sent flowers to American Birkebeiner, Birkebeinerrennet and Finlandia Hiihto).
Letters to WL races
We have written to some races with particular suggestions. Some of them concerned the seeding system (placing the skiers in the wave corresponding to their level with the fastest skiers first, see separate paragraph).
Engadin Ski Marathon (ESM) : we suggested that they should increase the number of waves and extend the total duration of the starts in order to eliminate the bottlenecks. We appreciate that the technical director, Albert Giger, thanked us for our useful proposals. He sent us a detailed answer in which he gave a list of motives for which ESM prefers not change the well established start system. At least one of the reasons is easy to understand: the organizers are afraid that with a system like American Birkebeiner (that we often cite as a good example: the start waves prepare 10-20 minutes before their respective starts, then move forwards one step when the foremost wave has left) there would be chaos. South European skiers are not disciplined like in the USA or in Nordic countries, and the organizers remember with horror the theft start that occurred in 2000.
Birkebeinerrennet : we complimented the organizers for the new start arrangement and the map of the offerings of food stations (but some stations ran out of food). We repeated the suggestion to have good bibs avoiding the fastening with safety pins. We received no answer.
Dolomitenlauf (DL ): we thanked the organizers for the use of their clubhouse for the IAWLS General Assembly and made two suggestions: 1) make the bib pickup system faster to avoid long lines, 2) organize a classic Silver Master race on Saturday, in addition to the classic Gold Master race. DL thanked us for the letter and assured that they will do better next year. Dolomitenhalle has already been rented for the bib pick-up. They will consider the possibility to add a classic Silver race.
La Transjurassienne (TJ) : This race has the most difficult transport system because of the wide variety of arrival points and accommodation areas. We suggested a further improvement of marking of buses and the presence of an English speaking person in the bus area at the finish. We observed that the 50 km classic race measured probably 53 km. Finally, we suggested increasing the number of start waves. TJ thanked us for this letter. The remarks on the transport were given to the chief of the transport commission. TJ has decided to shorten the classic race to 50 km.
Vasaloppet : we mentioned the difficulties that appeared at the start of Halvvasan (see the report on the IAWLS website) and suggested improvements. No answer, we will see how it works in 2007.
Executive Committee Members
Lech Milewski has retired due to other commitments. Lech was one of the three founders of the original IAWLS in 2000 and one of the seven founders of the registered association in 2005. We wish to express our thanks to Lech for his work during these years. His sense of humour and good judgement capability were highly appreciated. Lech has announced that he will not participate any more in overseas races. But we will be happy to see you at least in Kangaroohoppet!
As new Executive Committee members we recommend Colin Addison (AUS) and Lars Vagle (NOR). Both are well known to the “old” Committee members and have given appreciable contributions to our work. They are presented in the attached document “Presentation of candidates for the election in the Executive Committee”.
Race evaluation
The Executive Committee has elaborated an evaluation form for the quality of the organization of the races. During the coming season it will be tested and possibly improved. Thereafter it will be put at the disposal of members who will have the possibility to express their views in an organized way. Meanwhile, members can of course send their questions, observations and proposals freely to IAWLS@worldloppetskier.com.
Seeding
A major item in the Executive Committee’s work is the seeding in WL races. This means the placing of the skiers in the correct wave with the fastest skiers first. There are a few small races in which the start is fluid, therefore it is unnecessary to introduce a seeding system. But in some bigger races the organization of the start and the corresponding seeding system are important.
In order to evaluate the level of the skiers you need a criterion. There are two candidates:
-the time ratio (ratio between the skier’s time and the winner’s time)
-the placement ratio (ratio between the skier’s placement and the number of finishers).
After some years of observation we have deduced that the correct seeding criterion is the time ratio. One simple example demonstrates what we are talking about:
Take an average skier who gets a placement ratio of 1/3 in Vasaloppet, in other words, he/she beats 2/3 of the participants. The same skier gets a placement ratio of 2/3 in for example Dolomitenlauf, although he/she is skiing with the same energy input and obtains the same time ratio as in Vasaloppet.
What skiers do not like is that some races have a seeding system which is a “black box”. Some WL races apply “penalty factors” on certain other Worldloppet races.
We know that some races apply the time ratio or some variant of it. A couple of races apply the placement ratio which is the wrong criterion, i.e. it gives correct seeding only for results obtained in a certain group of WL races but incorrect seeding for results obtained in some other WL races. The time ratio, on the contrary, holds for all WL races.
We have begun approaching the WL races and presenting our seeding system. In principle, the seeding table of a particular race should contain, for each start wave, the times required in all other WL races, on the basis of the time ratios. Jizerská Padesátka adopted our seeding proposal and thanked us for it.
This is a long term project. We expect it to take years. An ideal end result would be that WL adopts a rating system for WL skiers: after each race you obtain the time ratio which is recorded at the WL office. The best result of the season is used by the races for the seeding. Each skier knows in advance to which start wave he/she is qualified, on the basis of results obtained in other WL races.
Survey
We conducted a survey on the website concerning the WL experience and future plans of our members. The results will be posted on the website and are not further commented here.
Hannes Larsson
IAWLS President
This page was last revised on December 4, 2006