Ski de fond à Lausanne: April 2012

After a heavy rain everywhere in Switzerland, it was great to find snow in Davos. Though the conditions on Saturday were not the best: it was snowing but wet snow, Sunday was a real winter. You open your eyes in the morning and watch how white snow is coming from the sky and slowly landing on the ground, on the cars, on the roofs of the houses. It is a slight minus outside. For the moment, you forget that it is 8th of April, you are filled with a joy of the first snow that has just arrived and the winter has just started. Nirvana... but you wake up from the dreams to realize that you it is the last race of the skiing season. Marathøl is waiting for you and this day is going to rock!

All serious races are finished by now, this one is all about fun, fun and fun. Mauro Gruber took over the organization of this 18th Marathøl edition and we all should tell him "BIG THANKS!!!". We were four SASlers at the start (Mauro, Evgeny, Pascal and Fabian) and with other joining us skiers we counted around 40 people.

Traditionally, Marathøl - Marathon + øl (a bier in Skandinavia) - is a bier race, where at the start and after each lap of around 400 meters on skis you have to drink a bottle of bier. Four laps, 5 bottles, but that's not all: everybody is wearing a costume which turns the race into a cartoon. You can find all kind of personages here: Super Mario, his brother Luigi, a Plane, a Duracel Rabbit, African Kozak, Mummies, and many others.

The Swiss Air Force pilot-plane (Mauro) was training very hard during the whole year to win the Marathøl. He was so desperate to be first, so that he came up with a very secret plan to introduce a sprint into Marathøl program. 100 meters all together: a shot of a strong drink at the start, 20 meters running to skis, another shot, putting the skis on, 30 meters on skis, last 3rd shot, 180 degrees turn and go back as fast as you can. Since Mauro is a very good sprinter, the plan was ideal and the victory was garanteed... But of course a bunch of russian hackers broke into the highly secure Marathøl system, stole the program and sold it for a huge sum of money to Super Mario (Ueli), who got his magic super-speed and won the main prize. We will see what strategies the others can offer to beat Super Mario next year.

The female NHL player (Tanja) came up with an icy winning strategy. During the night she secretly put water on the ski bindings of her hockey teammates - Gasparin sisters Elisa and Aita. When during the sprint they came to put their skis on, it took them so long to get rid of ice that she could finish first without any effort.

The winner of the traditional Marathøl naturally comes from the french part of Switzerland. Being a good skier and the descendant of professional russian warriors and drinkers who visited France in 1812, Sylvan left no chance to others. Tanja felt extremely guilty about her mis-behavior in the sprint, so she went all the race together with her teammates and they made a peaceful group finish.

Certainly, the party did not stop here and went on with pizzas, disco in the bars of Davos, and, of course, with the 18 candles cake for the Marathøl anniversary.

Skiing, having fun, meeting new people, making the existing relationships stronger - that is what it is all about! Next year - again. Thanks for coming!