We extend our congratulations to all new Worldloppet Masters and welcome those skiers who completed their first Worldloppet events this past season.
EThe IAWLS is now four years old and continues to grow. There are currently over 240 correspondents from 22 countries including a complete cross-section of skiers, from those new to Worldloppet, to several multiple masters.
The IAWLS welcomed two new committee members this winter; Blanka Nedvedicka from the Czech Republic and Piotr Szkarlat from Poland. Jan Jasiewicz, one of the founding members, retired this year. We thank Jan for his many contributions to IAWLS and look forward to seeing him at WL events next season.
IAWLS conducted two email surveys of correspondents. The first survey concerned the concept of a virtual skier passport . The response rate was 20%. 7% of respondents preferred a virtual passport, 20% a paper passport and 73% felt that both should be available. The second survey asked about the concept of some form of recognition/designation for skiers who have completed all 14 WL races - perhaps Global Worldloppet Skier. The response rate was 25%. 92% of respondents were in favour of the concept, 8% were opposed. We thank those who responded and encourage others to participate in future surveys. We value your opinion.
The Advice for Skiers on the IAWLS webpage was updated for this past season and will be reviewed again for 2006. Your suggestions/experience would be welcome to further improve this information resource.
The Committee is working to develop a seeding system which could be used by each WL event to give proper start placement to individual skiers based on their results from any recent WL race.
