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December 15, 2011 (Rogla, Slovenia) – Exceptionally warm weather has been causing problems for organizers of the last World Cup before Christmas in Rogla, Slovenia. Rain, temperatures above zero and warm wind has caused many sleepless nights for organizers of the FIS Cross-Country World Cup in Rogla, Slovenia. A bountiful 40cm of natural snow, which arrived in November, has melted away and humidity and warm temperatures have prevented the organizers from using their snow making system. Canada’s Ivan Babikov recently shared a photo on Twitter (below) that shows the extent of the problem.
“We have to transport snow from our depots. Farmers from the area have been helping us to get the snow on the tracks,” chief of competition Uros Ponikvar explained to fiscrosscountry.com. “We’ve put on the track approximately 6,000m3 of snow and more is being transported as we speak. We have been working extremely hard since Monday,” Ponikvar adds.
Organizers have 5,0000m3 of man-made snow in depots. “Snow transportation makes the whole thing very challenging. Due to warm weather the ground is wet and soft in some parts of the track and we must be very careful. Luckily we can access most of the parts of the competition track on a paved roller skiing track,” Ponikvar added. “We want to be finished with the course preparation by Friday.”
See more FIS Cross Country photos from Rogla on Facebook HERE.
December 15th, 2011 at 4:03 pm
Slovenija is a beautiful country and Rogla is a beautiful ski area!! It’s a shame this warm weather has continued in Europe. The organization has been working in double quick time to get the WC trails ready. They deserved the WC in 2009 and they deserve it this year as well, people are passionate about their XC skiing in Slovenija! Fingers crossed for them!!!
December 15th, 2011 at 4:40 pm
Out of curiosity. How widespread is this lack of snow in europe and scandinavia? Here in the west of canada snow cover as been quit good for the last month. Even in Calgary its possible to ski in the parks. Must be an economic disaster for the ski industry.
December 15th, 2011 at 5:51 pm
My guess with the weather and snow conditions being so marginal that this will become an interval start race—I can’t believe they will have the necessary trail width to pull off a race that won’t have mutliple train wrecks, people exciting the track etc.Is this a possible snow cement race, also?
The ski industry is heading for a financial train wreck—as eastern and central NA are looking at a snowless Christmas and beyond—big markets—you don’t Xmas you’re in trouble.
Then you tack on a lotm of middle Europe and parts of Scandanavia—WOW—and theindustry was just starting to feel good about its self.
December 15th, 2011 at 5:54 pm
Larry, certain parts are about as bad as you see from Ivan’s twitter photo, while others are just fine. Scandinavia is getting better, but only just. Central Europe is still a bit on the iffy side, as evidenced by Slovenija. It’s more or less man made snow in a lot of ski areas in Europe, certainly in Central Europe. Austria actually might be the best at this point. They are now about to start hosting their second straight WC biathlon event in Hochfilzen (took over France’s canceled WC). The forecast is looking like it could possibly snow starting tomorrow, but you never know. Global warming is upon us, whether we like it or not. I am glad Canada is doing much better though! Sounds like there was some awesome skiing to be had in Silver Star and again in Rossland!! The NorAm athletes should be grateful for the great skiing conditions in Western Canada! Now let’s see what mother nature can bring to the US East coast, namely Rumford, Maine….
December 16th, 2011 at 1:31 am
Marty, have you ever been to Slovenija, or more specifically, Rogla?