Jaunumi

Next weekend on 21st and 22nd of February Latvian Skiing Association in cooperation with Madona municipality and society “A-Madona” once again will organize the stage of the Scandinavian cup in cross country skiing in one of the famous skiing center Madona. This will be the fifth year in a row Madona hosts Scandinavian cup in cross country skiing. This year skiers will not compete in the sprint, because both days distance races are scheduled – on Saturday in classical style with interval start 10km for ladies and 15km for men, but on Sunday in free technique with mass start 20km for women and 30km for men. More than 150 cross country skiers from North America, Nordic and Baltic countries and other European states  will participate in Madona.

Latvian Ski Association will organize the second strongest competition in cross country skiing circuit – the FIS Scandinavian Cup – already the eight year, but fifth year in a row it will take place in skiing and biathlon center “Smecersils” in Madona.
It means that this small city in the region Vidzeme will celebrate small anniversary of the fifth year. For the first time this competition will be on the weekend, not in the middle of the week, as it has been before.

Scandinavian cup season started with the first two stages in very famous places – the first stage in the middle of December in home town of 1994 Winter Olympic games in Lillehammer (Norway), but the second stage was in one of the legendary skiing center for more than a century Falun (Sweden), where World championships will start from 18th February. Latvia will host the third stage of Scandinavian cup. For the second time in eight years there will be no sprint event, because competition program includes only distance races with interval start in classical style on the first day and mass start in free technique on the other day. As participants knows from previous years, the course in “Smeceres sils” is quite demanding.

First two stages involved six events with Norway taking 9 victories, but Finland with efforts of Matti Heikinen and Sweden of Charlotte Calla grabbed two and one victory accordingly.

Many years Scandinavian cup stage in Latvia was in the beginning of February, but last two years it has been moved to the middle of February. Therefore last year it collided with Olympic games in Sochi, but this year it will be during the World championships in Falun, when medals in skiathlon and team sprint will be decided. Everybody is welcomed to Madona for the strong and nice competition and have a good luck.