Masters World Championships, February-March, Tromsø, Norway
Introduction
We’ve been to Norway several times since the Masters was launched in 1980: Oslo in 1984, Geilo in 1993, Lillehammer in 2004 and Beitostolen in 2019. But we’ve never been this far north! Tromsø is in a magical location, on an island between two fjords at 69° North, 350 kilometres above the Arctic Circle (Kiruna, 2000, was only 150 km north (and still is), while Rovaniemi, 2007, was right on the Arctic Circle). Tromsø has a population of 78 000 and, while this is small for a city, it’s the largest place in the Arctic. It has the Arctic University of Norway with a variety of research institutes, and the University Hospital of North Norway.
Tromsø by night, which is about 6 months of the year!
When you have time off from skiing, there are lots of places to visit, such as the Amundsen Polar Museum, the Polaria Aquarium and the Merchant Ship Pole Star. Nearby there is also a small Defence Museum (only open on request) which has artefacts from the WW2 sinking of the German battleship 'Tirpitz'. There’s also a very high chance of seeing the Northern Lights. The wooded spine of the island is covered in cross country ski trails, and it is here that we will find the trails for MWC 2027, about half way between Tromsø airport and downtown.
Travel
Tromsø has an international airport, just 15 minutes by bus from Tromsø city centre and slightly to the north-west of the stadium area. The airport is where the plane is 😊, the red squiggles are the tracks, and downtown is where it says “Tromsø”.
For anyone from the London area, there’s currently an extremely convenient and cheap Wizzair flight from Luton, arriving on Wednesday 24th February and leaving on Sunday 7th March (or Monday 8th). Another alternative is to fly to Oslo and then take an internal flight (there should also be connecting flights from Stockholm and Helsinki), and it might also be worth looking out for Ryanair flights; they used to fly direct but the route is not currently showing on their website.
Accommodation
The organisers have reserved rooms in a number of hotels in the city centre (with one hotel nearer the venue), as well as some camping cabins. The city centre hotels are about 15 minutes from the venue and there will be free buses provided. If you want to take advantage of any of these rooms, you should contact info@msm.no. There are also AirBNB places available and I’m staying in one near the venue, which has a double bed available, provided that you can produce evidence that you don’t snore!
The accommodation picture seems to change from time to time, and it may well be (Tromsø is reckoned to be the AirBNB capital of Europe!) that more rooms become available nearer the event.
When
The event as a whole takes place between Thursday 25th February and Friday 5th March but, if you’ve not had enough skiing by then, you can travel to Sweden to do the Vasaloppet on Sunday 7th March or, if you prefer to stay in Tromsø, there will be the Kvaløysletta ski marathon at 12 km to the north-west of the city on Saturday 6th March. If you’ve had a bang on the head, I imagine that you could do the full Masters programme, the Kvaløysletta and then the Vasaloppet but you might be being chased by some nice men in white coats over the last few kilometres of the latter if you do.
As before, skiers M01-M06 have the choice of 10 km, 20 km and 30 km, those from M07-M09 10 km, 15 km and 30 km, and M10-M13 5 km, 10 km and 15 km. For ladies it is slightly different, so for F01-F06 it is 10 km, 15 km and 30 km, F07-F09 10 km, 15 km and 20 km, and F10-F13 5 km, 10 km and 15 km. There is no obligation to do short, medium and long races, either, you can do three races of any combination of distance and style. So the complete programme looks as follows:
On the free day, the main idea seems to be to look around some of the attractions of Tromsø.
Personally, I’m not sure that hysterical weather data are much of a guide but, having said that, here are some:
So, on balance, it looks like loads of snow (more than half a metre), but grip wax in that tricky coming-up-to-zero range!
The tracks
(L) The plate of spaghetti bolognese for Thursday night’s banquet and … I … err, sorry, I mean the 10 km track, (R) the track profile.
The scale to the left, I think, goes from 20 to 120 metres, and the 5 km track is similar to the last 5 km of the 10 km one
Further information, entry and deadlines
Entries are already open on the MWC website, https://msm.no/en/masters-world-cup/#velkommen. There is also a Faceberk page, https://www.facebook.com/MWCTROMSO2027, and Instagram link, https://www.instagram.com/mwc_tromso/.
You have until roughly mid-February, but bear in mind that entry is cheaper (€220) if you enter before the 31st December, after which it rises to €250. If you are not 100 % certain about which races you plan to so, you should enter early to benefit from the lower price, and when you are certain, contact me if you wish to change. A few weeks before the event, I am asked to verify all entries from Britain and this is when changes can be made (you can’t change races after that, and certainly not at the event itself. Should you sign up and then be able to compete, you can receive a full refund of the entry few by submitting a doctor’s certificate. You don’t need to worry about entering the relay; relay teams are formed on site the day before and do not require a separate entry.
If you still have any questions, contact me at aapinney@ntlworld.com.
