Comments on: Report from Andorra — Ski Mountaineering World Champs

By: Senderismo Andorra

Senderismo Andorra — Sun, 15 May 2011 13:02:04 +0000

Hello, I am from Andorra and very happy to hear that you had such a great time in such events. I just want to let you know that you can have a great time in Andorra also in the summer. The trekking sites are great. Please come to visit us, the andorrans are waiting for you. IN spanish we say Venid a hacer senderismo en Andorra!

By: Mike Stone

Mike Stone — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:24:22 +0000

The same starting procedures were used at the 2005 Euro Champs held in Andorra with the exception that the Vertical races were not mass starts. I have watched a few World Cup race starts in recent years and none have been ‘le Mans’ style. Perhaps its an American thing.
Frankly, I think they do quite enough taking off/putting on stuff during the course of a race as it is.

By: Jonathan Shefftz

Jonathan Shefftz — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 12:21:01 +0000

Cool videos!
But have “Le Mans” starts been discontinued?
Reading section 5.2.1.2 of the June 2009 ISMF rules, I see no mention either way.

By: Mike Stone

Mike Stone — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 11:58:37 +0000

Videos of the championships have been posted at engproduccions.com/canillo2010.html.

By: Jonathan Shefftz

Jonathan Shefftz — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 18:28:53 +0000

IIRC (maybe from skimo.org?), some sort of attempt was made to include rando racing as a demonstration sport at the 2010 Olympics, but this [obviously] did not succeed. Certainly in Europe the sport has impressive participation, and the elite level has amazing athletes. (Race reports such as this one are very inspiring!) Plus the gear has come a long way – no more garage shop modifications, etc. And the North American elite racers (both U.S. and Canadian) are now competitive with the Europeans.
But participation and events outside of Europe are both very limited.
To quantify this, I put together some data from these past two seasons:
http://tinyurl.com/yd9oqce
The northeast accounts for about a quarter of all rando races in the U.S., yet the total number of race starts is about the same as two evenings of the weekly 5k xc running race in a neighboring town here. And the number of total rando races throughout the U.S. is comparable to the number of Northeastern ski orienteering events or slowshoe “races” or other obscure winter competitions that are not in the Olympics. (New Zealand has one or two races, then maybe or two in Japans or South America?)
I sense that the level of U.S. elite racers has really been stepped up a huge notch, but the grassroots participation is kind of stalling out. (Although then again, maybe the IOC doesn’t care about this at all . . . which reminds, just what was the grounds for the amazing denial of women’s nordic jumping?)