Madshus marathon racer Oeystein Pettersen (NOR) is stepping onto the Marcialonga start line with the yellow Ski Classics leader bib and a five-point margin to second place.
Pettersen, the former World Cup sprint racer who debuted on the long distance circuit last season, is eager to protect the yellow bib as well as stay in contention for the green sprint points bib. He is currently in second place in the overall sprint competition.
Shorter and even flatter: Marcialonga reduced to 57km
Due to a warm winter and lack of snow, the course is shortened from 70km to 57km, and the short version, Marcialonga Light, is cut down to 33km from its normal length at 46km. The start for both races is moved to Mazzin. The start time for elite men and women in Ski Classics is postponed one hour, and will start at 9am Central European Time. Ski Classics sprints remain the same and will be in Canazei after 5km and in Predazzo after 32km.
However, the organizers had seen the problem coming and prepared for the race with a backup plan. More than 100,000 cubic meters of artificial snow have been produced in the past weeks due to a lack of natural snow so far, and on Thursday, it was snowing in Val di Fiemme and Fassa.
But the snow conditions do no seem to deter skiers from the race. Marcialonga is also a part of the FIS Marathon Cup schedule, which means that all the top long-distance racers will be on the same racecourse, as opposed to last weekend where the field was split between the Ski Classics La Diagonela in Switzerland and the FIS Marathon Cup race Dolomitenlauf in Austria.
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Small margins in the men’s race
Besides Ski Classics leader Pettersen, the elite men’s start list includes Madshus racer and last year’s second-place finisher John Kristian Dahl (NOR), as well as a long list of Ski Classics pro team racers eager to snag the leader bib, the sprint points and the victory.
Legendary Madshus veteran Thomas Alsgaard, who retired from World Cup skiing in 2003 after more than a decade on the circuit, three Olympics and five FIS World Championships, is also on the start list. Other veterans include Giorgio Di Centa of Italy and Lukas Bauer of the Czech Republic.
Fierce battles in the women’s field
Masako Ishida of Japan will challenge experienced Katerina Smutna and Seraina Boner for the overall Ski Classics lead, while Russian Marathon team racers Tatiana Jambaeva and Julia Tikhonova are other tough opponents.
Also, Sweden’s Britta Johansson Norgren and Annika Löfström of Team SkiProAm, Adela Boudikova of the Czech Republic, local Italian favorite Antonella Confortola and current FIS Marathon Cup leader Holly Brook’s teammate Laila Kveli of Norway are some of the contenders expected to give Brooks a good run for her money on Sunday.
The course
The 2015 Marcialonga will start in Mazzin, 13km up on the original course, hence shortening the track to 57km. The original course over 70km starts on the plain of Moena, Val di Fassa, and finishes in Cavalese, Val di Diemme.
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After the start the course climbs 20km through the villages of Pozza, and Canazei, where competitors then turn around to head downhill to Moena and on towards Predazzo before starting the last part which goes through the villages of Ziano, Panchia, Lago di Tesero, Masi di Cavalese, Castello–Molina. After 67.5km the most famous and hardest part begins; the Cascata climb. Where the athletes struggle up the serpentines to the finish in the center of Cavalese.
Science at work
This year’s Marcialonga is part of the new Marcialonga Science Project, which aims to evaluate and measure the impact of the double poling technique on muscles, muscle fibers and the heart of some athletes during and after the competition. The results of the study will be presented at the International Congress on Science in Nordic Skiing in Finland next June, and at the Mountain Sport Health Congress in Rovereto, Italy, next November.
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Proud history
Marcialonga is the most important Italian cross-country ski race. Founded in 1971 from the idea of four friends who, on the way back from the mythic Vasaloppet, decided to organize a similar event in Italy. However, it has been discussed that the idea to Maricalonga started already in 1969 inspired by the Italian skier Franco Nones outstanding performance in the Grenoble Winter Olympics the year before, where he took the gold medal in the men’s 30km.
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The first problem was “where” an event at this size should take place, and almost immediately the two valleys of Fiemme and Fassa came to mind. The first race was held in 1971 and became famous for their promotional action, where they dropped 50.000 leaflets from an airplane over the valley to get the attention from the inhabitants. In the end the name Marcialonga, long march, was chosen.