The long-distance cross-country ski race known as the Birkebeiner was abruptly halted just as it began Saturday morning, after organizers decided that winds were too strong over its mountain segment. The 54-kilometer (32-mile) race runs from Rena, in the eastern valley of Østerdalen, to Lillehammer.
It was the first time the race had been cancelled in more than 60 years, and it left its roughly 13,000 participants disappointed. Many of them had travelled to Norway to run the race.
Nearly everyone faced logistical problems arranging new transportation back home, since they couldn't get to Lillehammer where they'd arranged to be picked up Saturday afternoon.
Another jumping fiasco in Oslo
Meanwhile, in Oslo, the strong winds that swept over most of Scandinavia during the weekend caused more disappointment at the annual World Cup ski jumping competition at Holmenkollen. It was also cancelled, after the jumpers had completed just their first round.
The jumpers were even more disappointed than the roughly 20,000 fans who showed up at the landmark jump in the hills above downtown. Adam Malysz of Poland, who had a huge contingent of Polish fans on hand, nearly lost control in a wind gust and was just glad to make a safe landing.
"It was very difficult," he said, adding that he didn't think even the first round of competition should have been held. His poor jump also boosted Norwegian jumper Anders Jacobsen's chances in the World Cup race, because he did better just ahead of Malysz.
Simon Amman of Switzerland was declared the winner after a first-round jump of 121.8 meters, with Martin Koch of Austria second and Matti Hautamaki of Finland third. Amman wasn't the only one who later criticized the conditions at Holmenkollen.
'Looked like fools'
"We're the best jumpers in the world and we looked like fools up there today," claimed jumper Andreas Kuttel, who claimed the organizers had done a poor job. It wasn't just the winds that caused problems: Unseasonably warm temperatures turned the snow that had been placed on the jump into mush that made it hard for the jumpers to get a good take-off. A chilling system installed on the jump this past winter didn't help.
Plans call for the Holmenkollen jump to be torn down after next season and rebuilt in time for the Nordic World Championships that Oslo will host in 2011. Some worry that won't help solve the weather problems that routinely plague the area. Only three World Cup events have been held in full at Holmenkollen since the end of the 1990s, with the rest cancelled because of wind or fog.
Former Norwegian ski jumping star Espen Bredesen went so far as to claim on national radio Monday that the new ski jump, which will cost hundreds of millions of kroner, should be built "anywhere but Holmenkollen," a call which ski association officials quickly rejected.
