6.1.2014

More than half of the route is without snow, explains Jizerska 50 chairman Martin Koucký

Next year Martin Koucký will have been involved with the Jizerska 50 in a professional capacity for two decades. The chairman of the race’s organising committee acknowledges that he has never seen such a mild winter as this year’s. “And mainly I don’t want to see another one for a long time. I hope that similar warmth will come again once in a hundred years,” says the disappointed Koucký, who immediately adds: “In short, the race cannot be held in these weather conditions.”

At this time, how do the trails look on the main Jizera route, where the 47th ČEZ Jizerska 50 should take place next weekend?

The first 500 metres of the trail at the Bedřichov stadium are covered with artificial snow. The section through Nová louka to Kristiánov and onward is impassable for skiers. Furthermore, the whole Jizerka, part of Promenádní, the section around Smědava and nearly the whole final section before Hřebínek to the finish are without snow. So, it can be said that more than half of the route is without snow. We are very sorry about that, but the weather does not favour us. In these conditions the race cannot happen in any case.

How has the winter been in Bedřichov and its surroundings until now?

Winter started at the beginning of December, when new snow fell. Since then, the organisation of the Jizera main route, Jizerska o.p.s., has prepared the trail and worked on individual sections with our help. Unfortunately, there has been so little natural snow that even this effort did not help to create better snow cover on the trail.

Has the weather allowed you to at least produce artificial snow?

From the first day when the temperature fell under three degrees below zero Celsius, we produced artificial snow and used every moment when it was possible to do so. In addition, trucks transported snow from parking lots and from the water-treatment plant, where there is usually sufficient natural snow even during mild winters. During harsher winters, when there wasn’t enough snow, we brought in approximately 250 truck loads. This year there were sixteen loads and Bedřichov was completely “cleaned out”.

The race was cancelled five days before its official start. Was the situation really so hopeless?

According to the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute’s official forecast and highly respected internet servers, the weather doesn’t promise significant snowfall in any case. Unfortunately, we can’t fight with nature. I believe that such bad conditions are completely extraordinary and uncommon, and they won’t occur again for a long time.