13.2.2022

Jizerská 50 celebrates a record. It has never had as many skiers participating in its 55-year history!

The ČEZ Jizerská 50 is back in great style after a year’s pause for amateur skiers, who really are the soul of the race. On Sunday, an incredible number of 4,444 skiers took part in the 50K race and a total of 8,194 enthusiasts skied in all the races combined, surpassing the numbers from 2020. Such a record does not come easily, but we can say without undue pathos: This is everyone’s victory!

Before the start of registration

Such a gigantic event is certainly not easy to plan and its format is influenced by countless external factors. Apart from political and epidemic decisions, there are snow conditions, the weather and, above all, the work of the organising team that also play a role.

More than a month before the race, we realised that around 6,000 people were almost certainly going to come. This looked good, there would still be hard work at the end, after all, since there was still about a third of places available on most routes. The last sharp bends before the finish line were the work of the Czech government, which was about to loosen the restriction which enabled people to start in a race if they could prove they were not infected. However, the details and the form of the change long remained under wraps, and so the uncertainty continued. Still, people were getting more and more interested.

We were checking the forecast. It was strange, but this weekend was said to be the only one when it was supposed to clear up for a few days in a row.

Before the race bibs distribution opened, the number of registered participants was not that far from the eight-thousand mark. Meanwhile, the weather was wild in the mountains. For instance, during the weekend before the race, the Jizerské Mountains got some 30 cm of snow per day, only for the weather to warm up above zero at the start of the race week and the snow turned into awful cotton wool. The trails were covered with puddles. On the day before the start of the programme we got a lot of snow (over a meter on the mountain ridges), but it was 4 degrees Celsius and the sun was shining. The atmosphere resembled the spring a bit too much. Suddenly the news came that there was not a single place left for the children’s races. We would have 394 of them!

Onto the trails

The youngest kids category starts on Friday at 9am. The waxing tip for them highlighted wet fresh snow. Indeed, during the night the rain had turned to snow and the trails were covered with a five-centimetre layer of snow, but the snowmobile groomed them back into shape.

Next came the 30k freestyle race with 600 skiers signed up. They started in three waves for an easy ride. The weather forecast for the weekend was still improving. It was supposed to be below zero and blue skies and no wind on the mountain ridges. How untypical for the Jizerské Mountains, this is like in Italy!

All this means there is an incredibly relaxed atmosphere at the start on Saturday morning. 1,105 skiers set out in the Jizerská 25 race in classic style and 1,383 individuals, including 784 members of family teams, tried the ČT Jizerská 10. They were about to ski up on the meadows around Královka and discover a completely different world than the one they know from the big cities.

Saturday had been great, now we just needed to atune the mood for Sunday. This was mainly done by the weather, which would allow everyone a confident push on the skis. In the morning, the weather was electric again! Presenter Adam Nedvídek disarmed everyone in the stadium with his funny comments. It would be worth introducing a special staff member to put down the things that the moderator uttered. His colleague Michal Mazač was able to communicate in German. Thanks to him, Bedřichov seemed to have been transported to the plains around Seefeld in Tyrol. The conditions were a mix of the best of Sweden and Italy. We actually are somewhere in between the two countries on the map...

Fantastic 4,444 people skied through the stadium in Bedřichov. At 9:10 am we have everyone on the course. Everybody joined the race and the record was broken. It was just the time to watch the elite group of skiers, led by Andreas Nygaard, go for the course record. At Nová Louka they had some 5 minutes to go... No, it was not meant to happen, but who cares?

Let’s appreciate the fact that we live in such an interesting country, where spring reigns supreme in the cities, while in the low mountains we have Nordic winter. This 50th anniversary has been inscribed in the chronicles in golden letters and we can all applaud each other.