Jizerská Padesátka 2009

January 15, 2009

Again a big success for organizer and participants of Jizerská Padesátka 2009. 30 cm of new snow one week before the event make all officials very happy. So best conditions and very well prepared tracks were offered to the enthusiastic cross country racers from all over the world. The forecast for the main race on Sunday was blue skies with moderate temperatures. And it was true, with about -6 degrees at the start and nearly 0 degrees over midday it was fantastic to ski. No problems with finding the right clothes for that day. Also waxing was not very difficult for this dry powder snow. Most skied with dry wax, some used klister as a base wax. Biggest question was to use fluor glider or normal one, both worked well.

Once more very positive feedback from many skiers about the start mechanism. The slinking wave start is perfect not only for start areas with bottlenecks like in Bedrichov. Skiers from several start groups wish to have this system in other races too. A good organization along and around the race was given. Only at some parts the middle track of mostly three tracks was destroyed by snowmobiles, but that’s nowadays normal, in the time of modern technique with multimedia, cameras and live reports. On the other side its good that cross country gets more and more attention in the public. Its unbelievable how standards and practice have changed in the last 15 years. Padesátka is one of the best organized Worldloppet races, and they are always open to new ideas, they want to improve their standard all the time, that’s very positive.

Among the first six skiers were 5 different nationalities, that underlines the international status of that long distance race. But the Italian and Norwegian teams dominated the scenery. The big Thomas Alsgaard from Norway finished on place 16. Winner in the finish sprint was Cattaneo from Italy, in front of Ahrlin (SWE) and Rezac, the old matador from CZE. Interesting is that the winning time of  2:12:37 is just 5 sec. slower than 2008. Also head to head race for the women, Hansson from Sweden won in 2:40:13 three sec. in front of Mannima from Estonia. Third place became Kocumova from CZE. 3039 finished the main race.

Short race with 25K on Sunday won Rocarek from CZE. He dominated in 1:01:52 h among the 682 finisher. The 25 year old Rocarek won also the 30K freestyle race Bedrichovska on Friday before in 1:10:18. In that race 368 racers finished the course.

So altogether about 4100 finisher in Padesátka weekend 2009. After Sgambeda in Livigno a highlight in worldloppet and FIS Marathon Cup season 2008/2009. Hope it continues with nice races and excellent snow conditions in the coming weeks in Austria and Italy.

Following are some results of IAWL's members.

50k classic:

25k classic:

Young Suomi Matsuyama (9 years old) got his first stamp in his WL passport!

30k free style:

This page was last revised on February 20, 2009