Kangaroo Hoppet

Over 1000 skiers including 150 internationals, most of them being citizen skiers who have travelled to Australia with the aim of completing another event to count towards the 10 required to gain the coveted Worldloppet Master award.  The long period of sunny weather has resulted however in loss of snow in the Langfords Gap area and the course will be shortened to 36km.

Special mention of Hannes Larsson, who will be competing in his third ski marathon in three weeks.  While this is a commonplace achievement in Europe, to do it in the Southern Hemisphere is a bit more of a challenge. Hannes started less than three weeks ago with the Ushuaia Loppet in Argentina, followed up a week later in New Zealand at the Merino Muster and is now at Falls Creek preparing for the Kangaroo Hoppet.

This is not to overlook the elite competitors lining up at the start of the field where Australia’s best skiers get to test themselves against high quality completion from Europe and North America. Skiers to watch out for from overseas include 2011 Hoppet winner Valerio Leccardi from Switzerland who finished just seconds behind the winner in this year’s Engadine Ski Marathon, Barbara Jezersek from Slovenia, American Lauren Fritz and Valentina Shevchenko who carried the flag for Ukraine at the Sochi Winter Olympics. Leading the challenge from Australia will be Phil Bellingham and Paul Kovacs together with Esther Bottomley, Aimee Watson and Jessica Yeaton.

Weather, Sunscreen and Wax  Forecast for the next few days is blue skies, light winds and daytime temperatures up to 4 with overnight lows of -4. The event is at 1500 metres, so please use plenty of sunscreen. 

The course will be hard and fast early in the day but softening as the day warms up, so the waxing advice is to get out the riller and use a high fluro wax such as Swix Cera F.

The event will also be streamed live to www.hoppet.com.au.