Finlandia-hiihto

March 2, 2006

The Finlandia-hiihto took place on Saturday, February 25. There were two events, a 62 kilometer race and a 32 kilometer race, both for Classical Technique. The conditions were excellent. There was plenty of snow on the ground and the temperature was a few degrees below freezing. The race was a bit crowded going up the initial hills and for the first 5 kilometers but with the excellent start arrangements it soon thinned out and most skiers could ski at their own pace. The race length had been adjusted by 2 kilometers from previous years, but we believe that the course were the same it had just been measured more accurately .There are probably more citizen skiers in this race than in most other Worldloppet races and this lead to a very congenial atmosphere on the track where everybody was courteous on uphills and anywhere else where it was a bit crowded. The feed stations were well spaced with a variety of drinks and food. The long race was completed by 4244 skiers with a winning time of 2:54:37 and the short race was completed by 1008 skiers with a winning time of 1:58:53.

One of the participants was Juha Mieto, the Big Finn, who competed successfully in international skiing in the 80's and is now more of an ambassador for recreational skiing. Being nearly two meters tall he was the unlikeliest of cross country elite skiers. He got a silver in 15 km in Lake Placid in 1980, finishing one hundredth of a second behind Thomas Wassberg. This caused a change in the rules for the future that the time would only be measured in tenths of seconds.

This page was last revised on September 16, 2007