A ski marathon is a long distance cross-country skiing race, usually more than 40 kilometers. Skiers can use either classic (diagonal stride) or freestyle (skate) techniques depending on the rules of the race.
Races include:
- Vasaloppet in Dalarna, Sweden, held annually on the first Sunday of March—the world's oldest such race (90 km)
- Finlandia-hiihto
- Canadian Ski Marathon (160 km)
- American Birkebeiner in Hayward, Wisconsin (54 km classic and 50 km freestyle)
- Birkebeinerrennet or Norwegian Birkebeiner (54 km)
- Noquemanon Ski Marathon in Marquette, MI (48)
- Engadin Ski Marathon in St. Moritz, Switzerland (42k)
Famous quotes containing the words ski and/or marathon:
“The goal for all blind skiers is more freedom. You don’t have to see where you’re going, as long as you go. In skiing, you ski with your legs and not with your eyes. In life, you experience things with your mind and your body. And if you’re lacking one of the five senses, you adapt.”
—Lorita Bertraun, Blind American skier. As quoted in WomenSports magazine, p. 29 (January 1976)
“The mountains look on Marathon—
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,
I dreamed that Greece might still be free;
For standing on the Persians’ grave,
I could not deem myself a slave.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)