Competition
As a sport, cross-country skiing is one of the most difficult endurance sports, as its motions use every major muscle group and it (along with running, rowing and swimming) is one of the sports that burn the most calories per hour in execution. One of the legends in cross-country skiing competitions is Bjørn Dæhlie (Norway). In a test performed by his physiologist, Erlend Hem, Dæhlie made a VO2-max of 96 ml/kg/min of O2, a world record.
Modern cross-country ski competition is experiencing a revolution that is resulting in greater compatibility with audiences which began with the addition of the Sprint event to the World Cup and Olympic competitions in 2002. Today more and more races are being held in audience-friendly formats, such as mass start, sprint, relay and pursuit (a race that involves switching skis, and styles halfway through the race). The modern events in which athletes compete in at the World Cup and Olympics are (distances presented in Female/Male format): 1 km Sprint, 2X1 km Team Sprint, 10 km/15 km Individual Start, 15 km/30 km Pursuit, 30 km/50 km Mass Start, and 4x5 km/4x10 km Relay.
Today, there are several types of cross-country competitive events, involving races of various types and lengths, as well as biathlon, involving a combination of cross-country skiing and target shooting with a rifle.
The Winter Olympics, the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships, and the FIS World Cup events (including the Holmenkollen and the Tour de Ski, a grueling 9 race series completed in eleven days) have long been a showcase for the world's fastest cross country skiers. There are also special distance ski races, sometimes called ski marathons, like Vasaloppet in Sweden, Birkebeineren in Norway, the Engadin Skimarathon in Switzerland, the Canadian Birkebeiner, the American Birkebeiner, the Tour of Anchorage in Anchorage, Alaska and the Tug Hill Tourathon in the US. The skiing styles in these races might be fixed, or, in case of the so-called "double pursuit" event, the two styles are used each in their own separate half of the race (with a change of equipment in "pit stops" half way through).
The Canadian Ski Marathon, despite its name, is not a race, but a tour, the world's longest, at 160 km. The skiers choose their distance challenge and try to accomplish it. The highest honour, the Coureur de Bois Gold, is given to those who ski the entire distance and camp out overnight, bringing all their food and gear with them in a big backpack.
Since 2005, one of the world's longest cross country skiing races has been held in Forestville, Quebec, Canada. The Boreal Loppet has a race loop of 100 km.
- Cross-country skiing at the Winter Olympics
- FIS Nordic skiing World Championships (including XC skiing)
- XC skiing World Cup (weekly races throughout the winter seasons)
Read more about this topic: Cross-country Skiing
Famous quotes containing the word competition:
“Sisters define their rivalry in terms of competition for the gold cup of parental love. It is never perceived as a cup which runneth over, rather a finite vessel from which the more one sister drinks, the less is left for the others.”
—Elizabeth Fishel (20th century)
“The praise of ancient authors proceeds not from the reverence of the dead, but from the competition and mutual envy of the living.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679)
“Never before has a generation of parents faced such awesome competition with the mass media for their children’s attention. While parents tout the virtues of premarital virginity, drug-free living, nonviolent resolution of social conflict, or character over physical appearance, their values are daily challenged by television soaps, rock music lyrics, tabloid headlines, and movie scenes extolling the importance of physical appearance and conformity.”
—Marianne E. Neifert (20th century)