November 17, 2011 (Fairbanks, AK) – The Goldstream Sports Tour de Ski/Fairbanks, a three-day mini-tour on the FIS calendar, has been cancelled due to record cold temperatures in the Fairbanks area.  Low temperature records for Fairbanks were set both Wednesday and Thursday – the lowest temperatures for these dates in the more than 100 years that weather records have been kept.

The mini-tour was to have included a classic prologue on Friday, a classic mass-start on Saturday, and a skate pursuit start on Sunday.  Best-case predicted high temperatures for those three days were in the range of
-5F/-20.5, plus or minus a few degrees.

“Several dozen athletes and coaches were planning to fly or drive (360 miles/600km) up from South Central Alaska (Anchorage and the MatSu Valley) for the races.  It looked like the odds of reaching FIS-legal temperatures was slim.  It would make no sense for so many skiers to travel so far and not be able to race and thus miss out on the FIS and USSA points.  Therefore, we decided that the fairest course of action for all involved was to cancel the FIS and USSA events,” said the Nordic Ski Club of Fairbanks’ John Estle, the Chief of Competition for the races.

“Saturday’s race, in addition to being part of the mini-tour, is also the first race in the NSCF’s 16th annual Flint Hills Resources Town Race Series.  It looks like the temperatures for that race, the Fairbanks Youth Sports Season Opener, will be right around, or just below the FIS/USSA limit of -20C/-4F, so we will try to hold that event as a club race (because we don’t have to worry about the FIS/USSA cutoff temperature), but not as a FIS or USSA event.”

“We would like to thank all those people from Anchorage and the MatSu Valley who had planned to come up, and who expressed their support for our race organization and their disappointment at not being able to race at Birch Hill.”