Marcialonga in 2008

January 30, 2008

The Marcialonga organization had to deal with unusually warm weather this year and no snowfall in the week before the race. It is doubtful if the race could have been held this year unless they had spent so much effort in preparing the track in the weeks before the race. A ceiling of 5000 skiers in the 70k race had been imposed but they had added another 600 skiers by the time of the start. This would probably have been acceptable under normal conditions but with the warm weather, the tracks were really taking a beating from all the skiers.

The course seemed really good the day before the race. The temperature was forecasted to be about -7C the night before the race but is seems that it was much warmer than this.

The start of the race went smoothly with the new start system. The skiers started without any initial rush and you had the opportunity to ski slowly in the beginning to warm up. However, it did get crowded during the uphills in the first 20 km and it seems that the time between start groups should have been longer. Maybe they rushed it because the start of the elite skiers was delayed by 15 minutes.

The tracks that had been so perfect the day before really took a beating by the skiers because of the warm weather. Even skiers in the early groups complained about the tracks being torn up. In the first 20 km the tracks had icy bumps, in the next 20 km they were difficult because of all the blow downs caused by the heavy wind the night before, and after that they hardly existed because of the warm temperatures.

The show about the race was exciting as usual and as shown by the picture of the band in Cavalese. The Italian spectators are living up to their reputation.

I think that for more of us than usual, the race turned into a ski touring event where the main purpose was to complete it, not to care about the time. We congratulate the organizers for being able to provide a 70 km course and we look forward to doing it again under better conditions.

Many of the "true" classical style skiers were annoyed by the skiers that violated the rules. It was quite common to see skiers that would skate up any of the uphills. The race organization had plenty of volunteers along the race course. It seems that they should be educated in the rules of the sport and report violations of the classical style.

There was also a "short race" called Marcialonga light that had the same start but ended in Predazzio after 45 km, which is almost long enough to qualify as a full length Worldloppet race.

Results:

There were 4154 finishers with Anders Auckland, NOR being the men's winner at 3:09:32 and Jenny Hansson, SWE being the women's winner at 3:43:27.

Some IAWLS members:

 

Lavazeloppet

The Thursday before Marcialonga there is also the Lavazeloppet that is done at a cross-country area at the Lavaze pass. It is recognized as a Worldloppet Silver race associated with the Marcialonga. The race is at 1800 meters altitude and is 22 km long. The course is challenging and really fun and 286 skiers really enjoyed it.

 

 

This page was last revised on March 1, 2008