Birkebeinerrennet

March 26, 2006

If there is a law of series in Worldloppet races, this season was a good proof. Every race has been harder than average, due to weather conditions and in particular new snow. Birkebeinerrennet decided to follow the rule: there was no new snow but after a week of nice cold days and hard tracks, the weather turned warmer on the race day, Saturday March 18. In the start area we had -4C at 7 AM, warming up quickly to above zero. Men over 70 and women over 60 started at 7.30, the elite at 8.25 and then waves 1 to 17 with 7'30" intervals from 8.30 to 10.30. The size of waves 1 to 6 was around 500 skiers, waves 7 to 17 counted 700 to 800 skiers (numbers concern registrants). Even the fastest skiers who started before 9 AM had a loss of grip after mid-race. Progressively, the rising temperature led to the deterioration of the tracks, and the state of the tracks and waxing difficulties became much worse for slower skiers who started later. In the early afternoon the air temperature in Lillehammer reached 12C. In open areas there was a strong head wind which made progression slower. Also because the fine powder snow blown by the wind obstructed the tracks, although the organizers tried to help by driving new tracks with a snow-mobile.
11860 skiers were registered, 10822 started and 10169 finished. It is surprising that only 6 % abandoned. Maybe the fact that this was an end-of-the-season race where skiers have reached their maximum training level had an influence.
The Birkebeinerrennet start arrangement proved again very good in the sense that it minimised the number of overtakings and thus avoided the appearance of bottlenecks. 
The winner's time was 2.52.13, also much slower than  usual.
Some results of IAWLS members:

This page was last revised on September 16, 2007