Swedeventures with Tuck : Vasaloppet Week

Week 30:

Hello Everyone! This week's blog should be longer since I will explain a lot in this post about Vasaloppet week and also what I did last week.

To start off I will explain what the Vasaloppet is. On the Vasaloppet website they say, "Vasaloppet is the world’s oldest, longest and biggest cross-country ski race. It has a rich history and tradition; hundreds of thousands of skiers have tackled the 90 km stretch from Sälen to Mora since the start in 1922. Rigorous training and careful preparation is needed to complete this 90 km challenge. It is a race with classic technique along a magical landscape, followed by two million television viewers in Sweden alone." The route that the skiers race was inspired by a notable journey made by King Gustav Vasa when he was fleeing from Christian II's soldiers in 1520. So now you see why it is such a big event in Mora and the Cross-country community.

The races takes the participants through nine towns along the way to the finish which is in Mora and they start in Sälen. This race alone can bring 15,800 skiers and this year they had a total of 16,502 signed up but the maximum amount that can go in the race is 15,800 racers. The first racers usually cross the finish line after 4 hrs of racing. They start at 8 am so they get to Mora by approximately 12 pm. So yes, the first heat of racers are extremely quick to finish a 90 km race in only 4 hrs.

After searching for 20 min on the Vasaloppet result page I found the first Canadian who finished. I found his result on page 84 of listed participants! His name is Daryl Remmler with a time of 5:38:36 which is a difference of 1:30:36 from the first place winner. Our first female was Christiane Clavel and her time was 6:12:16 with a difference of 1:54:20. One person who I should also mention is a fellow Canadian Exchange Student and Ontarioian who came over with Rotary! His name is James Allen and he did the Vasaloppet in 8:36:35, and from what I could tell from his Facebook post he only trained for 3 months and finished in a great time!

The Vasaloppet race is the last Sunday of our Sportslov break which is a week long. Before the big race they have nine other races, four of which are the 90 km but they are not as big as the Vasaloppet. So our Sportslov break is from February 26-March 8th and this allows sports clubs to make money since the Vasaloppet will sponsor the Clubs but they would like work in return during the Vasaloppet week. So on the 26th I had a 5 3/4 hour shift to load skiers onto buses to get to the start line. My next job was on the 28th which was 7.5 hrs, the two of us would stop traffic if there was any when the skiers were crossing the road and then we would fix the tracks after the car passed. We actually got many compliments from the skiers as they went passed regarding our nice tracks and what a good job we were doing. That was good and always nice to hear since every time the cars drove over we had to remake the track. I then had the week off with a few practices for Innebandy during the nights and on Saturday (March 5th) we had a game! We won the game 5-3 which gives us our second win of the season. I hope we can end off the season strong with winning the last three games! On Sunday the 6th I had my last shift since it was the Vasaloppet. I had to do parking with 14 other guys from Kais Mora. We had an 8 hr shift we needed to do and we were great at it. We also practiced our tennis skills when there were no cars. That made for some fun when we were doing that while waiting for cars! Finally, on Monday I just relaxed at home and went to Innebandy practice! I will post pictures below from Vasaloppet and all that fun stuff.

Vasaloppet Website Link (English): http://www.vasaloppet.se/en/