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Tomorrow Sunday, March 5 at 08:00 in Sälen it’s time for the start of the 99th Vasaloppet. Vasaloppet 2023 is fully booked, which means 15,800 registered participants. Millions of TV viewers around the world will follow the race. New for this year, start places for the historic 100th Vasaloppet 2024 will become available at vasaloppet.se on Sunday when the first Vasaloppet skier passes the Mångsbodarna checkpoint. Here are all the conditions for this year’s edition of the world’s largest cross-country ski race.

Vasaloppet quick facts

DATE: Sunday, March 5, 2023
START: Vasaloppet start, Berga By, Sälen
START TIME: 08:00 CET
FINISH: The finish line portal at the belfry in Mora
DISTANCE: 90 km, classic technique
FOLLOW PARTICIPANTS: The official Vasaloppet app
LIVE BROADCAST: On radio, TV and streaming (see below)
FIRST RACE: 1922
CANCELLED: 1932, 1934 and 1990
THIS IS RACE NUMBER: 99
RULING CHAMPIONS: Andreas Nygaard, Norway, and Astrid Øyre Slind, Norway
REGISTERED PARTICIPANTS 2023: 15,800 (More than 50,000 in all the 12 races of Vasaloppet Winter Week 2023)
RECORD NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS: 15,709 started in 2010
HILL PRIZE: Evertsberg 47 km
OTHER SPRINT PRICES: Smågan 11 km, Mångsbodarna 24 km, Risberg 36 km, Oxberg 62 km, Hökberg 71 km, Eldris 81 km
NEXT YEAR: Registration for the 100th Vasaloppet on March 3, 2024 opens on Sunday, March 5, 2023 when the first skier passes the Mångsbodarna checkpoint, around 09:00.
WEBSITE: vasaloppet.se

History of Vasaloppet

Gustav Eriksson’s adventure in Dalarna took place during the winter of 1520–21. On June 6, 1523 he was elected King of Sweden – as Gustav Vasa. The first Vasaloppet took place in 1922. This year will see the 99th Vasaloppet, which is also the 27th with a special competition class for women (started in 1997). Three races have been cancelled: 1932, 1934 and 1990. Since 1948 the race has always run on the first Sunday of March, except in 2015 when the race ran on the second Sunday because of the World Ski Championships in Falun.

The first live TV broadcast of Vasaloppet took place in 1966. This will be the 46th time that Vasaloppet (in part or in its entirety) is transmitted live, and it’s the 41st time that the Vasaloppet start is broadcast live on television. 1973 was the first year with a live broadcast in colour. Since 1992 Vasaloppet has been shown live every year.

Since 1922 a total of 612,472 Vasaloppet skiers have completed the 90-kilometre Vasaloppet; if we put together all 98 races, participants have skied a distance equal to 1,375 round the world trips or 71 journeys to the moon and back. (Combining winter and summer races, there had been 1,735,888 finishes before this year’s Winter Week.)

The average finishing time for the 612,472 participants can be counted as 7.58.17 (average) or 7.54.00 (median).

The average skier 2022

In Vasaloppet 2023, the average age is 42.2 and the average participant has skied Vasaloppet 3.5 times before.

Of the registered Vasaloppet skiers in 2023, 57 percent have skied Vasaloppet before. So 43 percent are skiing Vasaloppet for the first time. 18.6 percent of the registered participants in the track on Sunday are women.

Names of interest 2023

• Andreas Nygaard, last year’s winner.
• Emil Persson, in the lead of Ski Classics this year, having won eight out of nine individual races. Second place in Vasaloppet 2022.
• Max Novak, has been in the top 3 three times and this season he’s currently third in Ski Classics.
• Tord Asle Gjerdalen, won 2021. If he were to win this year too he’d be the oldest Vasaloppet winner.
• Petter Northug, came tenth in Marcialonga 2012 and was supposed to ski Vasaloppet that year but was unable to start. This year he came fifth in Grönklitt Criterium, his best placement in Ski Classics.
• Alvar Myhlback, born March 22, 2006, has received a special dispensation from the Swedish Ski Association and will be Vasaloppet’s youngest participant ever. (In order to participate in Vasaloppet 2023, you must ordinarily be born in 2004 or earlier, in other words you have to turn 19 this calendar year.)Women– Astrid Øyre Slind, last year’s winner who will be skiing 30 km at the World Championships in Planica the day before Vasaloppet.
• Magni Smedås, leading Ski Classics this year. Won both Marcialonga and Jizerská and has the chance to take home a Grand Slam. Has never skied Vasaloppet.
• Ida Dahl, has won most races among the women this year, putting her second in Ski Classics. Her best Vasaloppet placement: third in 2021.
• Emilie Fleten, second place in Vasaloppet 2022. Has been in the top 3 in 16 Ski Classics races, but no win yet.

Winners at Vasaloppet

Last year’s results

All top ten men from 2022 are still active, while six of the top ten women in Vasaloppet 2022 have now retired. Only eight different men’s victors and four different women’s victors have managed to defend their Vasaloppet win the next year. Most recently, John Kristian Dahl 2017 and Lina Korsgren 2021. Only nine times in the men’s class (since 1922) and four times in the women’s class (introduced in 1997) has the person who finished second in Vasaloppet won the race the following year.

Awards and prizes

The awards ceremony for Vasaloppet 2023 takes place at 15:00 on stage at the Vasaloppet finish line. Training scholarships are awarded to the top 15 men and top 15 women. The prize sum is the same in the men’s and women’s class.

The first prize (for both men and women) is a gold medal, a green salal leaf garland, a big red Dalecarlian horse and a cheque of 99,000 SEK (about 9.000 Euro), as this is the 99th race. In addition, the victors receive the sponsors’ honorary award, a brass cast ship’s bell, awarded this year by Volvo. The men’s class winner will also get the Kranskulla honorary award, an embroidered pillow. (The Kransmas honorary award was given at Tjejvasan.)

There are seven sprint prizes for both men and women: 10,000 SEK in Evertsberg (The Hill Prize) and 5,000 SEK at the six other checkpoints; Smågan, Mångsbodarna, Risberg, Oxberg, Hökberg and Eldris.
The total prize sum for Vasaloppet 2023 is 618,000 SEK. If a participant sets a new record time in the men’s or women’s class of Vasaloppet they will also be awarded a 50,000 SEK record bonus.

Placement medals – gold, silver and bronze – are awarded to those who come first, second and third. Participants who finish within the winning time plus 50 percent are awarded the Vasaloppet achievement medal. Everyone who completes Vasaloppet gets a diploma and a participation medal.

The first man and woman to reach Mångsbodarna in 2023 will get the first number bibs for the 100th Vasaloppet 2024, with the number 100.

Celebrities in Vasaloppet 2023

Lars Berger, Norwegian former elite biathlete, world champion in both cross-country skiing and biathlon
Per-Anders Gråberg, Swedish champion jockey
Jonas Stentäpp, hard rocker, “Hjalle & Heavy”, Mimikry
Melker Andersson, chef, restaurateur
Johan Jureskog, chef, restaurateur
Robin Bryntesson, former elite skier (will be skiing backwards!)
Peter Göransson, Vasaloppet winner 1998
Hanna “Hannalicious” Friberg, blogger
Ninni Schulman, crime author
Dag Bredberg, former elite hockey player; Swedish champion 1983 with Djurgården
Eric Ågren, former elite bandy player
Lasse Beischer, actor
Jan Friis-Mikkelsen, Danish TV chef
Birger Fält, Vasaloppet expert, former member of the national race walking team
Hans Gerremo, former CEO of SLAO
Stephan Wilson, TV host
Michael Storåkers, business leader, prolific advertiser
Øystein Löseth, Norwegian business leader, former CEO of Vattenfall