News

On Sunday 3 March at 08.00 is the start in Sälen of the 89^th Vasaloppet. Here we have gathered together some interesting facts before Sunday’s race.  

– This is the 89^th Vasaloppet. The first was in 1922. (Three races have been cancelled, those in 1932, 1934 and 1990). Since 1948 the race has always been run on the first Sunday in March. Vasaloppet is now 90 kilometres long.

– Vasaloppet 2013 was fully booked in eleven days in March 2012. This means 15,800 registered participants. The record number is 16,462 from 2010, but the entry ceiling is now limited to 15,800. On average, this year’s Vasaloppet skier has taken part in 3.5 races previously, but of the entries all of 6,542 (42.1 percent) are first time participants!

– There is a record number of female participants: almost two thousand ladies have registered entries (more precisely 1,972), which means 14.4 percent out on the course on Sunday will be ladies. 

– Vasaloppet 2013 has participants from 42 nations. A record! Biggest, of course, is Sweden. After that comes Norway (1,669), Denmark (547), with Finland, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Estonia and France also in the top ten list. There are, in fact, registered participants from all parts of the world. 

– The biggest Swedish counties in Vasaloppet are: Stockholm 2,326 participants, Västra Götaland 2,117 participants, Dalarna 863, Uppsala 511 and Skåne 599 participants.

– The average age in Vasaloppet 2013 is 41.6 years. Youngest is David Thorell, Gothenburg, who will be 19 in December and oldest is Lennart Söderhäll, Gävle, who will be 87 in September.

– We find a number of well-known Swedish names out on the course on Sunday: this year’s Festival Speaker Anja Pärson, the adventurer Ola Skinnarmo, the para-olympist Anders Olsson on a sitski, Vattenfall’s CEO Öysten Löseth, the Olympic rowers Lassi Karonen och Olaf Tufte, the master chefs Melker Andersson and Paul Svensson, the rally World Champion Marcus Grönholm – to name a few.

– Favourite amongst the betting companies is Jörgen Brink who gives 3.50 times money. Svenska Spel’s odds (Thursday 28 February at 08.00) is Jörgen Brink 3,50, Jörgen Aukland 4,50, Anders Aukland 5,50, Simen Östensen 6,00, Jerry Ahrlin 7,00, Daniel Tynell 7,00, Stanislav Rezác 9,00, Jimmie Johnsson 9,00, Oskar Svärd 15,00.

– This year’s kranskulla is Isabelle Jansson (from Sälen) och kransmasen is André Gatu (from Mora).

– 495,526 Vasalopps skiers have, since 1922, finished after completing a Vasalopp between Sälen and Mora; altogether they have covered a distance equivalent to 1,113 round the world trips or 58 journeys to the moon and back! 

– Bengt Eriksson, Sälens IF, this year skis his 60^th consecutive Vasalopp! (He has skied 53 Vasaloppet and 6 Öppet Spår.) Bengt’s best placings in Vasaloppet are second 1958, third 1965, fourth 1959 and fifth 1961. His average placing is 1,007^th and average time 5.46.30. 790 veterans have skied 30 or more Vasalopps.

– Only 3.2 percent of participants in the 2012 Vasaloppet broke off their race. 

– Only 4 victors have achieved the feat of winning three Vasalopps in a row: Nils ”Mora-Nisse” Karlsson (total 9 wins), Janne Stefansson (7 wins), Jan Ottosson (4 wins) and Jörgen Brink (3 wins).

– Sofia Lind has most victories (four) in the ladies class (1997, 1999, 2004 and 2005). Sofia Lind was also the best lady in 1996, the year before Vasaloppet’s official ladies class was introduced.   

 – Ernst Alm, who in 1922 won the very first Vasaloppet, is the youngest male victor. He was 22 years and 18 days when he won (born 1900-03-01). The oldest Vasaloppet victor is Jörgen Brink (born 1974-03-10) who was almost 38 when he won in 2012. 

– Youngest and oldest Vasaloppet winners amongst the ladies, since the official ladies class was introduced in 1997, are, respectively, Sofia Lind (born 1975-09-04) and Svetlana Nagejkina (born 1965-02-02). Sofia Lind was 21 when she won in 1997 and Svetlana Nagejkina 37 when she won in 2002.

– The smallest margin between the ladies’ and men’s winners was in 2007 when Elin Ek was only 4 minutes and 49 seconds after the men’s winner Oskar Svärd. She was then the 92^nd skier to finish.

– There are 54 men who have won the 88 races. Once there was a shared victory, in 1988, when Örjan and Anders Blomqvist skied together over the finishing line with kranskullan Karin Värnlund in their arms!

– The current record time for men is 3.38.41 (Jörgen Brink, 2012) and for ladies 4.08.24 (Vibeke Skofterud, 2012). A new Volkswagen car awaits those who break the men’s or ladies’ record.    

– Vasaloppet’s first TV direct transmission was in 1966. This year is the 36^th time for direct transmission (in whole or in part).  SVT, Swedish Television, transmits on SVT1, SVT World and on SVT play 07.30–12.30 as well as many parallel transmissions on the web.  

– Vasaloppet 2013 will be sent by 17 TV companies all over the world: PCTV Mexico, MTV3 Finland, SVT Sweden, TV2 Norway, Czech TV Czech Republic, Band Sport Brazil, Nova Sport Greece, Nova Sport Cyprus, Viasat Denmark, Viasat Sport Baltics Estonia, Viasat Sport Baltics Latvia, Viasat Sport Baltics Lithuania, SPTV Croatia, Slovak Sports TV Slovakia, Sport+ France, ARD/ZDF News Germany and EBU News Europe.

– Last year more that two million TV viewers in Sweden saw the transmission. The highest noted figure was 2,244,000 viewers and the average figure over the five and a half hours transmission was 1,678,000 viewers. Vasaloppet is also seen in 13 other countries. 

– Vasaloppet’s website vasaloppet.se had, during Vasaloppet’s Sunday 2012, all of 565,935 unique visitors (with a total of 7,066,209 page shows).

– Each participant in Vasaloppet’s winter week (eight races) drinks almost a litre of Ekströms blueberry soup. Together in 2102 they drank 44,000 litres Ekströms blueberry soup, 39,000 litres sport drinks, 11,000 litres vegetable bouillon and 4,000 litres coffee at the various control checkpoints. Also consumed are 100,000 Vasalopps buns. And, after the finish, 5,000 litres of fruit juice is consumed. And for all this 770,000 paper mugs are used up!

– Entry registration for Vasaloppet 2014 and the other seven races in Vasaloppet’s winter week 2014 opens on vasaloppet.se on 17 March 2013 at 08.00. In the summer there is also Vasaloppet’s summer week with both CykelVasan and VasaStafetten (relay running race for 10 person teams) with, so far, over 15,000 registered entries.

– Vasaloppet’s operations 2012 generated about 18 million SEK to sports! The total turnover for Vasaloppsföreningen Sälen-Mora and Vasaloppet Marknads AB was in 2012’s final accounts about 120 million SEK. In total then about 18 million SEK went directly back to sports and association activities, of which about 50 percent in the form of surplus to the owner clubs (IFK Mora and Sälens IF), about 30 percent in the form of recompense to the some 50 associations in the region who contribute by providing Vasalopps functionaries, and about 20 percent in the form of fees to the Swedish Ski Association and the Swedish Cycle Association who, in turn, share this with their respective members.