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What is Cross Country Skiing?

Cross country skiing is a winter sport where people slide across snow-covered areas using skis and poles. It is a popular sport in countries which have large flat snowy areas such as: Northern Europe, Canada, Alaska and the northern Midwest United States. Cross country skiing is part of the Nordic skiing sport family, which includes ski jumping and a mix of cross country skiing and ski jumping named Nordic combined.

To win the cross country skiing event, the athlete must complete the race in the least amount of time.

Types of Cross Country Techniques in the Whistler Olympics

There are two cross country skiing techniques:

1. Classic technique – the skis are pushed side-by-side to each other through the snow
2. Free technique – Skiers thrust themselves like in speed skating by pushing off with the edge of their skis. Shorter skis are used and free technique is marginally faster than classic technique.

Types of Cross Country Skiing Events in the Whistler Olympics

The cross country skiing event in the Olympics has both men and women competitions. There are individual and team events and is the sport with the most number of events and presents one of the largest sources of Olympic medals. The winner of the race is the athlete who finishes the course in the least amount of time. Here is an explanation of each type of competitive format:

• Individual Start: The skier uses the free technique and each person starts every 30 seconds.
• Mass Start: All skiers start at the same time and line up in an arrow format. The best athletes are positioned at the arrow’s point. The skiing uses the classic technique.
• Pursuit: Skiers begin the race as in the mass start event. The race is a combination of classic technique and free techniques. Halfway through the race the skiers change over from classic style to free style, including a change in skis and poles
• Individual Sprint: using the classic technique, the event begins with a qualification round, where the top 30 skiers from the round qualify for the quarter finals. This process continues into semi-final, and A and B final rounds. The top two skiers from each round move upwards. The A final includes six athletes competing for the gold medal.
• Team Sprint: A team is consists of two members who switch up skiing the sprint course, three laps each for a total of six laps, using the free technique. The semi-final round has 10-15 teams in each heat, the best five teams from two semi-finals qualify for the final round. Skiers must show the correct exchange between laps by physically touching their teammate without imposing on the other teams.
• Relay: The team is composed of four members who ski the first two relay legs the classic technique and the last two relay legs the free technique. Beginning in a mass start form and the exchange in this race is the same as the team sprint where athletes must show the correct exchange between laps by physically touching their teammate without imposing on the other teams.

Cross Country Skiing in the 2010 Whistler Olympics

The cross country skiing event is scheduled to be in the 2010 Winter Olympics starting February 15th to 28th, 2010. The competition will be held in the brand new Whistler Olympic Park in Callaghan Valley located 18 kilometres southwest of Whistler on the Sea to Sky highway.

Devon O’Malley is a staff writer for Allura Direct, a travel website offering powerful search and instant booking features for Whistler vacation rentals and other popular mountain resorts. Check out the 2010 Whistler Olympic events and book your Whistler vacation rentals today!