On 5 Mar 2004, Anders Lustig wrote:

"Gary Jacobson" wrote in message .. .

At his fourth attempt the Finnish ski orienteerer won
Vasaloppet.


That would be Pekka Kuvaja. He was a 50km specialist *and*
an orienteerer (not a ski orienteerer; I don't think the
sport existed way back then.)

According to the book "Orienteering" (Hans Bengtsson,1977) the first
civilian Ski-O competition was held in Sweden Mar 4, 1900! The first
civilian dry-land O competition was in Norway Oct 7 1900. Before that
there were O competitions (on and off skis) in the military.

The book also makes the claim that the 1949 Olympic Conference in Rome
gave Ski-O "Olympic Status"!

Vasaloppet is still on my "to do" list- probably the Öppet Spår.
I've visited the VL area twice in summer on bicycle tours,
spent several hours in the VL museum in Mora. I cycled the
VL route (on the paved highway which parallels the trail)
and it sure didn't seem flat to me!

On VL Sunday, 1995, I was in Gjøvik, Norway and watched the start
live on Swedish TV- I could have stayed inside all day watching but
the skiing around Gjøvik was SO GOOD that day!

Not quite live TV coverage but there is a camera overlooking
the street at the finish area that updates its picture every 5
seconds. You can see skiers go by but you can't read their bib numbers!

"http://kamera.mora.se/"

The camera at the start is only updated ever 24 hours
"http://mora.vasaloppet.se/DagensBild/content.html"

It looks like it has been sunny in Mora for the last few days.

--

David Dermott , Wolfville Ridge, Nova Scotia, Canada
email:
WWW pages: http://www3.ns.sympatico.ca/dermott/