Cross-country skiing (sport)


Competitive cross-country skiing encompasses a variety of race formats and course lengths. Rules of cross-country skiing are sanctioned by the International Ski Federation and by various national organizations. International competitions include the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships, the FIS Cross-Country World Cup, and at the Winter Olympic Games. Such races occur over homologated, groomed courses designed to support classic and freestyle events, where the skiers may employ skate skiing. It also encompasses cross-country ski marathon events, sanctioned by the Worldloppet Ski Federation, and cross-country ski orienteering events, sanctioned by the International Orienteering Federation. Related forms of competition are biathlon, where competitors race on cross-country skis and stop to shoot at targets with rifles, and paralympic cross-country skiing that allows athletes with disabilities to compete at cross-country skiing with adaptive equipment.
Norwegian army units were skiing for sport in the 18th century. Starting in the latter part of the 20th century, technique evolved from the striding in-track classic technique to include skate-skiing, which occurs on courses that have been groomed with wide lanes for those using the technique. At the same time, equipment evolved from skis and poles that were made of wood and other natural materials to comprising such man-made materials as fiberglass, carbon fiber, and polyethylene plastics.
Athletes train to achieve endurance, strength, speed, skill and flexibility at different levels of intensity. Off-season training often occurs on dry land, sometimes on roller skis. The organization of cross-country ski competitions aims to make those events accessible both to spectators and television audiences. As with other sports that require endurance, strength and speed, some athletes have chosen to use banned performance-enhancing drugs.

History

In 1767 Danish-Norwegian general, Schack Carl Rantzau, codified four classes of military skiing contests and established prizes for each:
  • Shooting at prescribed targets at 40–50 paces while skiing downhill at "top speed".
  • "Hurling" themselves while racing downhill among trees "without falling or breaking skis" .
  • Downhill racing on large slopes without "riding or resting on their stick" or falling.
  • "Long racing" with full military kit and a gun on the shoulder over ca. 2.5 km of "flat ground" within 15 minutes .
An early record of a public ski competition was for an 1843 event in Tromsø. The announcement called the event a "wagering race on skis". A distinct alpine technique emerged around 1900 from how skiing was practiced up until then when Mathias Zdarsky advocated the "Lilienfelder Ski Method" as an alternative to the Norwegian technique. In Norwegian, langrenn refers to "competitive skiing where the goal is to complete a specific distance in pre-set tracks in the shortest possible time". Alpine skiing competitions existed in Norway during the 18th and 19th centuries, but were discontinued when the main ski festival in Oslo focused on long races and ski jumping. The alpine disciplines reemerged in Central Europe around 1920. Ski touring competitions are long-distance cross-country competitions open to the public, competition is usually within age categories.
In the 1800s racers used a single, wooden pole, which was longer and stronger than modern poles, and could be used for braking downhill, as well. In Norway, racing with two poles met with resistance, starting in the 1880s, when some race rules forbade them; objections included issues of aesthetics—how they made skiers " like geese". As the use of pairs of pole became the norm, materials favored lightness and strength, starting with bamboo, which gave way to fiberglass, used at the 1968 Winter Olympics, aluminum, used at the 1972 Winter Olympics, and ultimately carbon fiber, introduced in 1975.

Skate skiing

was introduced to competition in the 20th Century. At the first German ski championship, held at the Feldberg in the Black Forest in 1900, the Norwegian Bjarne Nilssen won the 23 km cross-country race and was observed using a skating motion while skiing—a technique unknown to the spectators. Johan Grøttumsbråten used the skating technique at the 1931 World Championship in Oberhof, one of the earliest recorded use of skating in competitive cross-country skiing. This technique was later used in ski orienteering in the 1960s on roads and other firm surfaces. Finnish skier Pauli Siitonen developed a variant of the style for marathon or other endurance events in the 1970s by leaving one ski in the track while skating outwards to the side with the other ski ; this became known as the "marathon skate". American skier Bill Koch further developed the marathon skate technique in the late 1970s. Skate skiing became widespread during the 1980s after Koch's success with it in the 1982 Cross-country Skiing Championships drew more attention to the technique. Norwegian skier, Ove Aunli, started using the technique in 1984, when he found it to be much faster than classic style. Skating is most effective on wide, smooth, groomed trails, using fiberglass skis that glide well; it also benefits a stronger athlete—which, according to Olav Bø, are the reasons that the technique made a breakthrough in the early 1980s. Athletes widely adopted skating to both sides by the time of the 1985 world championship and it was formally adopted by the FIS in 1986—despite initial opposition from Norway, the Soviet Union and Finland—while preserving events using only classic technique.

Events

Winter Olympic Games

The Winter Olympic Games are a major international sporting event that occurs once every four years. The first Winter Olympics, the 1924 Winter Olympics, was held in Chamonix, France and included Nordic skiing among the five principal disciplines. Cross-country events have evolved in the Winter Olympics since 1924, as seen in the following timeline:
  • 1924 Winter Olympics: Cross-country skiing debuts.
  • 1952 Winter Olympics.: Women's Nordic skiing debuts
  • 1956 Winter Olympics: men's 30 km and the women's 3 × 5 km relay added.
  • 1964 Winter Olympics: Women's 5 km added.
  • 1976 Winter Paralympics: Paralympic cross-country skiing added.
  • 1980 Winter Olympics: Women's 20 km added.
  • 2002 Winter Olympics: Appearance of sprint and mass start events in Salt Lake City.
At the 2022 Olympics in Beijing, cross-country skiing featured events in both classic cross-country and skate skiing. The two styles alternate at the major events. For example, at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, the 15 km men's individual race was a skate skiing event. At the 2022 Olympics, this event was skied in classic style.

FIS events

The FIS Nordic World Ski Championships have been held in various numbers and types of events since 1925 for men and since 1954 for women. From 1924 to 1939, the World Championships were held annually, including years with Winter Olympic Games. After World War II, the World Championships were held every four years from 1950 to 1982. Since 1985, the World Championships have been held in odd-numbered years.
FIS events include:
EventDates for MenDates for Women
Individual sprint2001–Present2001–Present
Team sprint2005–Present2005–Present
5 kmN/A1962–1999
10 km1991–1999, 2025–Present1954–Present
15 km1954–20231989–2003
17–18 km1925–1950N/A
20 kmN/A1978–1987
30 km1926–20031989–2023
50 km1925–Present2025–Present
4 × 10 km relay1933–2023N/A
3 × 5 km relayN/A1954–1970
4 × 5 km relayN/A1974–2023
4 × 7.5 km relay2025–Present2025–Present
Combined/double pursuit/Skiathlon1993–Present1993–Present

Ski marathon

A ski marathon is a long-distance, usually point-to-point race, of more than 40 kilometers; some are held concurrent with shorter races and participation is usually open to the public. In Norwegian, such a race is called turrenn. Major events have more than 10,000 participants where mass starts often have a modified starting order by groupings of participants—who have been judged to be of similar ability, beginning with the elite skiers group and ending with a group of the least experienced skiers. Skiers can use either classic or skate-skiing techniques, depending on the rules of the race. Awards are usually based on overall placement, placement by sex of athlete, and by age category. There are two major series in this category, the Ski Classics and the Worldloppet.

Ski Classics series

Ski Classics is a commercially sponsored international long-distance cross-country skiing cup competition, held in Europe. It originated in January 2011. As of the winter of 2015–6, the tour consisted of eight long-distance events, preceded by a prologue of 15 km and La Sgambeda of 24 km:
EventClassicFreestyleLocation

Worldloppet series

The Worldloppet Ski Federation recognizes twenty ski marathons including those in the Ski Classics series. They recognize those athletes who complete Worldloppet races in 10 countries, at least one of which has to be on another continent, to qualify as a "Worldloppet Master". The organization, sanctioned by FIS, seeks to attract elite racers to its events with the FIS Worldloppet Cup and aims thereby to "increase media and spectator interest in long distance racing". Notable races, other than the Ski Classics series include:
EventClassicFreestyleLocation