MWC24 AUSTRALIAN TEAM REPORT:
An Australian team of 13 competitors and 4 supporters participated in the Masters World Cup 2024 from 9-16 Feb 24 in Vuokatti, Finland.
Prior to the competition the team also held pre-training in Vuokatti and in Dobbiaco/Koblach in the Sud Tirol, Italy, including some completing the 42km Dobbiaco-Cortina Cross Country Race. The below 20C temperatures in Vuokatti limited training there and delayed competition by a couple of days.
On Tuesday, as the temperature popped up above -20C for a few hours, short classic and freestyle 5km races were held, shortened from the usual 10km due to the cold. In the classic races, Ben Barr finished 5th in M03 (40-44yo). Adrian Blake finished 29th and Robert Eddy 30th, both in M08 (65-69yo). Acacia Rose finished 10th in F08. In the freestyle races, Ben Barr finished 9th, and Zac Zaharias, Adrian Blake, David Simpson and Peter Lambert finished 37th, 39th, 40th and 41st in the M08 (65-69yo). Wayne Pethybridge finished 22nd in M07 (60-64yo).
The next day the relays were held, consisting of four 5km legs, two classic and two freestyle. Australia had a M08 (65-69yo) team, placing eighth, including beating the French on a couple of legs.
These were followed on Thursday by 30km classic races where Ben Barr came 4th in the M03 (40-44yo) age group, a fantastic result! Alan (Smiley) Hope came 17th in the M09 (70-74yo) age group, also an awesome effort!
The final day of competition saw the 20km and 30km freestyle races. We had some great performances in our respective age groups, with Ben Barr placing 8th, Chris Tattersall 24th, David Simpson 29th, Zac Zaharias 30th, Deb Purss 5th, and Acacia Rose 9th. We also had a few competitors who didn’t start or finish for various reasons, who became enthusiastic members of the cheer squad!
The key theme to Australian Masters Cross Country Skiers is to ski at amazing ski locations around the world, have a go, and have a great time. Looking forward to MWC2025, 10-15 March 2025 in Klosters, Switzerland. If you are interested in coming along, email peterllambert@icloud.com”
Peter Lambert 17 February 2024
AND A MORE PERSONAL POINT OF VIEW:
After a great time in the Dolomites, which is well worth visiting and skiing, we then transited back to Zurich by train and then flew to Helsinki and onto Kajaani before overland to Vuokatti where the World Masters were held.
Unfortunately, our arrivals coincided with an Arctic Vortex descending over Finland and the temperatures dropping to -25 to -30C for over a week. This made it very difficult to train as it was too cold to go out early. Often we would go out after 2pm but it was still below -20C so skiing was no fun. Our coldest waxes wouldn't work, you could classic up hills on your skating skis, but you just got cold hands and feet very soon. In fact I didn't last 2km on my first ski before having to turn back with frozen fingers. This is despite wearing woollen undergloves and a new pair of lobster gloves I bought In Vuokatti that were supposed to be rated to below -15C. Even with 4 layers of clothing you felt cold right through your clothing pretty soon. For those who don't ski cross country skiing involves wearing warm, thin layers so you are not too bulky, no puffer jackets or things like that. You also had to breathe through a buff as it is dangerous to exercise and directly breathe very cold air. Because of my cold and congestion I bought a rebreather mask so I could breathe warmer air. It was pretty successful although you had to take it off at the top of any steep hill so you could gasp more air in! The gasping was more directly related to my lack of conditioning by then!
The local Finns seemed to have no troubles with their ski waxes or wearing only light clothing, they just seemed to press on everywhere without any fuss.
Quite often skiing the race tracks turned into a survival mission to just do it and get back. We did such little skiing that nearly everybody had not done the 10km trail before they had to do it with 3 laps in the 30km race on the last 2 days of racing! And it was a tough, brutal course! The cold lasted right up to the competition start and then resulted in the first 2 days racing (Sunday and Monday) being cancelled as the WMA has a rule that racing cannot proceed on a course where the temperature is below -20C. In fact, the first day was -29C so we all just stayed inside. We all gained weight because we were not exercising and just eating heaps at every meal. The race organisers then had to do a rejig of the program by halving the short race (10km) to 5km and they ran both the classic and freestyle on the Tuesday starting after lunch. They also scrapped the 15km middle distance race and rest days but left the relay and 30km races intact.
We had a great team spirit and supported everybody at all races. It was hard work standing around as it was still about -15 to -18C at the relays and 30km classic. Then on the final day (30km freestyle which most people were competing in) it warmed up to about -5C which made the racing a bit easier. You still froze as a spectator but it wasn't as bitter as previously. Our phones suffered more as the smart screens wouldn't work and often your phone froze up entirely despite usually being kept in pockets in puffer jackets.
With the competition over we are all dispersing in different directions. The Finns did a great job on organising although there were hardly any spectators and we had the only national flags on the course. It lacked any atmosphere compared to the previous events I have attended. We won no medals, lost the annual challenge to the Brits for the first time but had a good time. Valdis Bodnieks, our resident Latvian coach who lives in Canberra won 4 medals so we have adopted him as an honorary Australian which he was proud to be, even being photographed a number of times with the Australian flag.
Peter Cunningham 17 February 2024
