Topic - Races - Norway:
Skarverennet
Date first posted on eCommunity - 15
April 2007
The competitive XC ski season in Europe edges to a
close next weekend with the running of Norway's Skarverennet, one of the
largest cross-country ski races in the world.
Taking place on Saturday 21 April, the freestyle event will attract up
to 14,000 entrants. Some will cover the full 38 kilometre course from
Finse to Ustaoset, near Geilo. Others will opt for the shorter (26
kilometre) stage from Haugastøl to Ustaoset. Many will be in the
"recreational" class and will regard it as a kind of fun run, a last
chance for a long day out on snow before the onset of spring. But others
will be in the "competitor" class and will treat the
event as a race – and some of them will treat it as a very serious race,
for Skarverennet attracts the top Norwegian racers. Among the men taking
part this year are Ole Einar Bjørndalen (last year's winner) and Frode
Andresen and Kristen Skjelda, each of whom has won the event twice in
the past. Among the women will be veteran Elin Nilsen, who has won the
women's race thirteen times.
Inaugurated in 1974, Skarverennet takes place in Buskerud county and for
much of its length it runs through Hallingskarvet National Park. The
full course, from Finse, is a challenging switchback. For the first six
or seven kilometres you climb steadily, up from 1200 metres to around
1450 metres. Next the route undulates through spectacular high-mountain
scenery – the escarpments of Hallingskarvet are on your left – until
about six kilometres from the end. It then turns downhill and loses 300
metres of height on the way to Ustaoset: a fast finish that helps the
winner achieve a time of about 1 hour and 20 minutes.
Skarverennet is very impressive logistically. There is no road access to
Finse in winter, so all participants have to be taken to the start by
rail. A total of ten trains will be needed, each with a capacity of
about 1200 skiers (and their skis). Some trains will start as far away
as Oslo, departing from Sentral Station at 05.30. But most will start
from Geilo, which is where the majority of participants base themselves.
The remoteness of the course calls for good safety and evacuation
resources: one hundred snow-scooters will be stationed along the route
and two helicopters will be kept on standby. To cope with track
preparation, marshalling, manning drink stations and general operations
a total of 1,000 volunteers will
needed; some of them will have been involved for many months. Logistics
are inevitably made more complex because the event takes place within a
national park and protection of a fragile environment has to be a prime
concern.
The event is a very good example of how a "citizen" sporting event can
bring important economic benefits to the community that hosts it. Over
the race weekend a total of 30,000 people – participants and their
families - stay in or around Geilo. It has been estimated
that in 2006 they spent the equivalent of about four and a half million
pounds sterling in connection with the race weekend. Of that, about 1.7
million pounds went on the race arrangements (track preparation, rail
transport, safety, stewarding). The rest was general tourist
expenditure, much of it spent in hotels, shops and bars, but with a
large amount going to the temporary "Skarverenn Shop" which sells
sporting goods. Geilo Sports Club (Geilo Idrettslag) netted a surplus of
about 200,000 pounds. Some of this funded the club's three full-time
employees, much of whose workload throughout the year is devoted to
organising the race.
For more details (in Norwegian) of the event go to Geilo Idrettslag's
website:
http://www.geiloil.no/comweb.asp? segment=3&ID=23
For more info about Geilo, visit
http://www.geilo.no and select the English version.
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