January update

Here you will find brief news items, in English, summaries of selected recent articles from the Swedish website.

Snow over the whole Vasaloppet course

Today there is snow cover, of varying depth, over the whole distance from Sälen to Mora. Beginning on January 10 Vasaloppet, together with Mora municipality, laid out artificial snow on the stretch from Hemus to Eldris, the last 10 km of the Vasaloppet course – this not because of any great snow shortage, but because artificial snow has better holding qualities than natural snow. Mora municipality takes care of the artificial snow and Vasaloppet pays for driving it out to the course. This “snow insurance” is done to safeguard the track quality between Mora ski stadium and Eldris.   

Snow depth over the rest of the Vasaloppet course is just now between 15 to 30 centimetres of packed snow. Moreover Vasaloppet has 50,000 cubic metres of artificial snow already manufactured in the Oxberg snow factory. Just in case…



Vasaloppet 2012 poster by the Swedish artist and film actor Lasse Åberg

“There are really few artists who are so beloved and well known in Sweden as Lasse Åberg,” says Vasaloppet’s CEO Jonas Bauer. “We were very curious to see what he would come up with and are absolutely delighted with his wonderful clockwork Vasa skier…”  

Lasse is a longstanding collector of toys, comics and Disney bits and pieces and has in his Åbergs Museum in Bålsta outside Stockholm, walls, cabinets and shelves packed full with popular cultural treasures from the early 1900’s. His Vasaloppet poster depicts a clockwork King Gustav Vasa with a key in his back, which with rotating poles rolls forwards on metal skis – clearly inspired from his collection of mechanical toys.

“I didn’t want to make a heavily panting skier against the direct light, but something that was a little bit more me, something that was fun to look at,” said Lasse Åberg when the poster was presented.  

The poster will be on sale during Vasaloppet Winter Week together with a very limited series of signed and numbered original lithographs.

H.R.H. Prince Carl Philip Vasaloppet’s Festival Speaker 2012 

H.R.H. Prince Carl Philip will be Vasaloppet’s Festival Speaker in Mora Church on Friday March 2^nd 2012. The prince, who himself took part in Öppet Spår 2004, follows thereby in his father’s footsteps:  H.M. King Carl XVI Gustaf has in fact been Festival Speaker on two occasions, first as crown prince in 1973 and later as king in 2004.
The royal participation on the Vasaloppet course has been extensive over the years: King Carl XVI Gustaf took part in Vasaloppet 1977, time 8:12:41, in Öppet Spår 1987, time 7:09:45, and in Öppet Spår 1997, time 7:37:00. Prince Carl Philip took part in Öppet Spår 2004 in a time of 6:21:52 and Princess Madeleine took part in TjejVasan 2008 in a time of 2:22:19.

Mora Church has always had a central role in connection with Vasaloppet, since Vasaloppet’s Festival takes place there every year; the list of Vasaloppet’s Festival speakers is just as long as that of Vasaloppet victors.  

Sweden’s Anders Högberg won Vasaloppet China 

Anders Högberg from IFK Umeå won the 10^th anniversary Vasaloppet i Changchun, China, on January 2. With that he also won “2012 China Tour de Ski”.

The Chinese Vasaloppet is Asia’s biggest ski competition and measures 52.5 kilometres (three circuits of 17.5 kilometres).