König Ludwig Lauf 2009

February 8, 2009

Like alpine areas in general, Oberammergau had lots of snow, but in January warm temperatures and devastating rains left an insufficient snow cover on long parts of the tracks. No worries! During the days preceding the races we saw hundreds of trucks carrying snow onto the course. This year the organizers decided to make two laps on the long race. The start was in Ettal as usual and the course went up in the forest to Graswang where the 20 km race turned back towards the Graswang church and to the finish in the usual place in Oberammergau. The 50 km race continued upwards, including a little climb and turned back near the Linderhof Castle. This extension in comparison to previous years with two loops allowed a full 50 km distance. From the vicinity of the Castle the track returned towards Graswang, remaining always on the same side of the road, joined the turning point of the 20 km race, crossed Graswang and returned to the start for the second loop that obviously finished in Oberammergau.
The snow teams had made a remarkable work. We enjoyed an excellent course. A detail to be noted is that the descent about 3 km after the start where citizen skiers were snowploughing, or rather iceploughing in a previous race (instinct of preservation of the species!) was now skiable: the snow teams had covered the hard surface with several cm of powder snow in which it was easy to steer the skis.

Saturday's race in Free Technique

On Saturday January 31 took place the 50 km FT race. We had about -5 °C in the morning, going up to near zero in the early afternoon. The weather was cloudy and the raw humidity made it feel colder than it was. The tracks offered a good glide.

50 km FT race. 524 skiers finished the race. The winner's time was 1:56:11.
Some results of IAWLS members:

20 km FT race. 613 skiers finished the race. The winner`s time was 41:09.
Some results of IAWLS members:

Sunday's race in Classical Technique

For Sunday we were supposed to have sunny weather. Early in the morning that forecast looked wrong: black clouds made us believe that we were going to have the same gloomy weather as on Saturday. But about 10 minutes before the start the sun made its appearance and we could see the Kofel, the landmark of Oberammergau. It was an excellent sunny day, ideal for XC skiing. From the track we could see the beautiful Bavarian Alps. At the start the temperature was -5°C, during the day it rose to close to zero. The tracks were excellent and the snow gave a good glide, at least for a couple of hours.

1361 skiers finished the 50 km race. The winner's time was 1.59.42. Some results of IAWLS members:

336 skiers finished the 20 km race. The winner's time was 48.48. Some results of IAWLS members:

This page was last revised on March 15, 2009