Jizerská 50 AND Bedrichovska 30 in 2008

January 19, 2008

This year the beautiful scenery of Jizerske Hory ( Jizera Mountains) welcomed skiers in all its glory. Sun, moderate wind, temperatures around zero and good snow accompanied us during both races. Surprisingly, despite a bad forecast and miserable weather during the whole week, those two days were beautiful. It looked like Jizera Mountains wished to apologize for the lack of snow and the cancelled race in 2007.

Jizerská 50, with more than 3000 participants has grown over the past years to become one of the biggest ski races in central Europe. It is needless to say that the race started its “new life” after joining Worldloppet. The organization of the race is improving every year.

This year Jizerská 50 adopted a new start arrangement introduced last year by Marcialonga. This skier-friendly start has been described in detail in our report from Marcialonga 2007. No bottlenecks, no fighting, no broken ski poles. We congratulate the organizers and wish to encourage other WL races to follow this idea.

The course was very well prepared so despite quite slow snow the race was much more enjoyable and was truly relaxing to all the citizen skiers who were competing against themselves, time and perhaps a few friends.

This picture of the race may be considered too perfect for those who after the race had to stand in the long line for the food or diploma. Yes, there is still some room for improvement and we believe that with the fast growing number of participants, organizers will appreciate that every edition of the race is a new challenge.

The main race was preceded by a 30km free technique Bedřichov 30 on Friday. It is always a good warm up before the long distance and a good opportunity for skiers to make themselves familiar with the racecourse as the Bedrzichovska 30 runs entirely on a portion of the Jizerská 50 course. This year this race was completed by 338 skiers and if it continues to grow we suggest that organizers should think of seeding the participants into at least two groups. The trails in Jizera Mountains are quite narrow and it is extremely difficult to overtake on the long uphill in the skating technique race.

See you next year in the Czech Republic!

Some results of IAWLS members.

Jizerská 50 (3059 finishers with the winners time being 2:12:32):

Bedrichovska 30 (338 finishers with the winners time being 1:10:41):

This page was last revised on February 5, 2008