MARCIALONGA COUNTS DOWN THE DAYS

2012 Marcialonga  officially unveiled in Trento yesterday

Sunday 29 January the ski-marathon kicks off in Moena at 8.15am

Petter Northug Jr. among the number one favourites

Side events scheduled on Saturday

 

 

Marcialonga, Italy’s most renowned and popular long distance cross-country ski race, is ready to get back on track next Sunday in Val di Fiemme and Val di Fassa (Trentino region). Marcialonga Management Board unveiled the very last details about the Nordic event, yesterday in Trento.

‘Considering the odd winter we’ve been through, it’s been some kind of a miracle that this year we managed to prepare the 70k track’, Marcialonga OC president Alfredo Weiss said at yesterday’s press conference. ‘Around 200.000 cubic meters of snow have been produced and placed along the course, and now everything is ready, from a technical point of view. In this regard I want to thank all local municipalities, track operators and over 1.000 volunteers’.

7.200 cross country skiers from 32 countries will show up next Sunday at the start of the 2012 Marcialonga (8.15am in Moena), and 2.314 are from Italy, while 2.840 come from Norway. Superstar Petter Northug jr. is undoubtedly the most awaited athlete, in particular along the eventual ‘One Way Finish Climb’ right before the finish in Cavalese. Northug jr. will battle it up for the new Marcialonga title against other champions such as Brink, Fredriksson, Aukland, Svartedal, Bjervig, Koukal, Rezac, Livers, Santus (leader of FIS Marathon Cup), Ahrlin, Svärd, Steurer, Freimuth. On the women’s side, the FIS Marathon Cup leaders Valentina Shevchenko of Ukraine and Sara Svendsen of Norway, last year’s winner Seraina Boner, Sweden’s Jenny and Sandra Hansson, Lintzen, Nyström, and Italy’s Antonella Confortola and Magda Genuin are among the top favourites. The champion Katerina Neumannova will be at the start too.

Marcialonga is part of the FIS Marathon Cup series, Worldloppet and Ski Classics series.

Several side events will be taking place on Saturday at the XC stadium in Lago di Tesero, such as Minimarcialonga for kids, Marcialonga Young for young categories and Marcialonga Stars supporting the Italian Association against Cancer (Lega contro i Tumori). Olympic medallists Gabriella Paruzzi and Karen Putzer, and road cycling champions Maurizio Fondriest and Gilberto Simoni are among the participants of this charity event.

Marcialonga will be broadcast live on Italy’s RAI Sport 2 and on 8 further international channels (SVT Sweden, TV2 Norway, TV2 Sport Denmark, MTV3 Finland, DigiSport Hungary, Nova Greece, SPTV Croatia,  Czech TV), and delayed on KZ Sport 1 Kazakhstan, PCTV Mexico and Rogers Sports Net Canada.

Info: www.marcialonga.it