The story of Jan Pirk: Skiing at a tank trail

“There were no tracks at all on the trail, it was snowing, but the snow was melting. A lot of people had given up that year, they had finished before they reached Smědava, giving up in the field before the downhill towards Hnojový dům. Going uphill from Smědava was still relatively okay, as I had waxed my skis well, but apart from that I was struggling, especially as a TV channel motor sled took no heed that thousands of people would be skiing in the tracks it had so carelessly destroyed by crossing it back and forth...”

That day in January 2012 skiing on his beloved skis, Jan Pirk experienced a real ordeal. He had just started his fifth Jizerská Padesátka in the morning, it was the 45^th edition of the race. Together with the other almost five thousand participants he was to spend five hours of cross-country skiing in a snow storm. On top of everything, just before the start of the race he lost his glasses...

The then 63-year-old competitor completed the snow-blown, slushy fifty kilometres in almost exactly five hours and he claims that everyone took extra 45 minutes longer than usual. “It wasn’t skiing, it was a training track for tanks!” he said to the regional reporter from the Mladá Fronta Dnes daily in the finish.

Jan Pirk couldn’t participate in the race twice when it was cancelled and once because of a health problem. “I had a funny moment with the president instead,” he says smiling. “I always say that when you are ill you shouldn’t do sport. And as I had just had a really bad case of flu, I excused myself that year. For that reason, the organisers invited me to the VIP tent above the stadium. President Klaus saw me there, he comes up to me and says: ‘Why are you not skiing?’ I started explaining that I was ill. And he says, ‘What a stupid excuse...’ Maybe it was meant as a joke.”

When he is running the “Jizerka”, professor Pirk enjoys the landscape vistas. Unlike most competitors he loves going uphill to Zlaté návrší, “At least since I’ve had Atomic SkinTec skis with skin in the kick zone – they are slightly slower going downhill, which I really don’t mind at all, and they are excellent for going uphill.

The problem with Jizerská Padesátka is that the snow is completely different at the top than lower down. You either wax so that you go uphill really well, but at the top you get clods of snow on your skis, or you struggle going up and then up on the hill when you could finally go smoothly you have hardly any strength left to push off.”

Jan Pirk brings two pairs of skis to Bedřichov, the above-mentioned skin skis and one normal pair. He decides on the day of the race which to use. The ideal conditions for the race for him are: three degrees below zero, the sun is shining and the trees have snow caps on top, “Then you get views like from a wall calendar.”

One year Jan Pirk was skiing next to architect and actor David Vávra. Going up they talked about architecture in the Krkonoše mountains. “I said that the way Milan Starý had built Dvoračky practically on his own is completely unique in architecture,” Jan Pirk praised the reconstruction of the popular mountain hut. “But Vávra objected, saying the sliding door doesn’t fit the style! I defended the door, because it’s vital for keeping the warmth in... And people were going past us astonished, ‘I’m racing here, struggling along and these two are talking away!’ The point is I don’t care about my placement – at my age it’s important to reach the finish healthy,” says the man who has participated in almost all cross-country skiing races in Europe. “After finishing I always make sure to have some beer. There is no better sports drink than lager!”