30th Sapporo International Ski Marathon 2010

Contributed by Berndt Bellmann

February 14, 2010

It is a long way for Europeans to the Far East. But our aim is to become Global Worldloppet Skiers and to become well acquainted with Japan.     So we started our travel in Germany on Monday and arrived at Sapporo on Thursday afternoon. So, the travelling took us almost two days. We did relay on the travel advices of the International Association of Worldloppet Skiers (IAWLS) and the announced help of Minoru Matsuyama.     The advices are complete and absolutely correct.     Minorus assistance was a great help for us. He advised us in traveling and other logistic concerns, he organized with the assistance of his family movements and a great finisher party. We felt very welcome and enjoyed the feeling of being a part of the great friendly and peaceful family of Worldloppet Skiers.     The race by itself is from a classic skiers point of view, a very hard one. The classic track is set but unfortunately in probably twenty percent of the whole track it is not. Mostly the classic track is destroyed by the skating skiers and is very soft so it is not fast.     Otherwise the best skiers finish times document that you can complete the race in a very fast time with skating.     Some parts of the track let you have a rush of adrenalin because there are some downhill parts with narrow turns.     The organization was perfect. The only thing that could be improved next time is that instead of cold drinks, better warm drinks should be offered during the race. We unfortunately had some problems with our stomach because of the cold drinks.     In Women 50K Belinda Phillips from Australia won followed by Louise Martineau from Canadaand Yuri Okumura a Japanese.     In Men 50K Seth Downs from USA won followed by two Japanese Tetsushi Takada and Takahiro Kubo.     In order to enhance the acceptance of foreign skiers here are some suggestions listed:

• Solve the problem as described for the classic skiers. In Europe especially in Scandinavia skiers like classic skiing.
• Smoothen out the track, less technical hard parts or short it a little bit.
• Increase the web presence. Release more information in the last weeks before the race.
• Add in the result list the English written county name and the age group of each competitor.

This page was last revised on     May 9, 2010