By Teemu Virtanen
This Sunday, the biggest ski race in the world, Vasaloppet, takes place once again in Sweden. The 90 km event was established in 1922, and 117 skiers finished the race back then. The winner Ernst Alm spent more than seven and a half hours on the course, 7:32:49. The race has been canceled only three times in 1932, 1934 and 1990. In almost 100 years, there have been many winners of this legendary race from many nationalities; nine in the men’s race and eight in the women’s one. And there are also a few skiers who have managed to carry the victory garland more than once.
In the early days, Artur Häggblad from Umeå managed to win the race five times, his last victory in 1940. After the World War II, Nils Karlsson, Mora-Nisse, became the greatest hero of the race with his nine wins, seven of them back-to-back from 1945 to 51. He also won the race in 1943 and 1953. The first foreigner to win the race was Pekka Kuvaja from Finland in 1954. One of the greatest cross-country skiers of all time Jixten Jernberg from Sweden, nine Olympic and six World Championship medals, was the fastest skier of the race twice in 1955 and 1960.
The 60s was Janne Stefansson’s hegemony as he won the race seven times, from 1962 to 66 and from 68 to 69, only Assar Rönnlund managed to win the race in 1967, who was also a famous cross-country skier from Sweden with his three Olympic and three World Championship medals.
The first Norwegian skier, and the second athlete outside of Sweden, to win the race was Ole Ellefsæter in 1971 – he has two Olympic and two World Championship medals under his belt. The first Central-European, from East Germany, was Gert-Dietmar Klause in 1975 and the first Russian was Ivan Garanin in 1977 followed by Jean-Paul Pierrat from France in 1978.
In the 80s, two non-Swedes manage to win the race; Walter Mayer from Austria in 1980 and Konrad Hallenbarter from Switzerland in 1983. In 1988, the famous Swedish long distance skiing brothers Örjan and Anders Blomqvist shared the victory, after which Jan Ottoson won the race four times, three in a row, 1990 race was canceled.
In 1997, the official women’s competition was introduced, but women were allowed to participate since 1981. However, the first women to ski Vasaloppet was Margit Nordic in 1923. The first official female winner was Sofia Lind. She has won the race four times.
The following year, Vasaloppet got its first American winner as Kerrin Petty won the race, although representing a Swedish ski club, IFK Mora SK. In 2006, the first Italian skier Christina Paluselli won the race, and in 2015 Justyna Kowalczyk from Poland managed to get the best female result in history as she was 71st in the overall competition. In 2016, Katerina Smutná from the Czech Republic won the race, and she is the last foreign winner of the women’s race.
There are eight different nationalities within the women’s race with race victories – Svetlana Nagejkina won the race twice, first as a Russian and then representing Belarus. Additionally, there are three other women with two titles; Sandra Hansson from Sweden, Laila Kveli from Norway and Britta Johansson Norgren from Sweden. Johansson Norgren holds the second best overall result as she finished 81st last year. Vibeke Skofterud has the fastest female winning time of 4:08:24 in 2012, and she was the first Norwegian woman to win the race. In total, Sweden has 14 wins in the women’s competition since 1997 while Norway has three.
On the men’s side, the last non-Swedish or Norwegian skier to be on the highest spot on the podium in Vasaloppet is Raul Olle from Estonia in 2000. Since then, there are four skiers who have won the race three times; Oskar Svärd, Daniel Tynell, Jörgen Brink, they are all from Sweden, and John Kristian Dahl from Norway. Brink has the record time of 3:38:41 in 2012. Throughout the history of the race, only 10 winners have finished in less than four hours. Last winter, Tore Bjørseth Berdal and Johansson Norgren were the winners of the race and are now defending their titles.
