random skate-and-classic ski races?

I just got an idea while posting a reply to Ken's ramblings on skating.
Are there ski races where skiers choose skating vs classic randomly?
Should be fun.

Most "skate" races are actually "freestyle" races, meaning you can
stride if you want (and I often do). Generally no one strides in a
"skate" race because it's slower.

As a (mildly) interesting sidenote, back in the day, when we were
starting to skate in races, one would usually only skate in fast, icy
conditions - technique and equipment had not evolved to the level where
you could skate faster than you could stride while skiing in mush.

bt

Bryant, the original question was if skating is faster. To me, there is
no question that skating is faster, but to convince everybody would be
to have a 50-50%, true "freestyle" race. Would Marc Gilberston have
keep winning every LP Loppet (or nearly every - I haven't been
following it for a while) if he had been striding?

wrote:
Bryant, the original question was if skating is faster. To me, there
is no question that skating is faster, but to convince everybody
would be to have a 50-50%, true "freestyle" race. Would Marc
Gilberston have keep winning every LP Loppet (or nearly every - I
haven't been following it for a while) if he had been striding?

Couldn't a point be that skating is natural to some and classic more natural
to others, due to their physics? I would guess that classic is more natural
for most people because it has the straight-forward movement while skating
is more of twisting legs and feet? I could also imagine that skating is more
natural for Charlie Chaplin.

--
Terje Henriksen
Kirkenes