By Gavin Kentch
The 51st American Birkebeiner will be held tomorrow in northwestern Wisconsin. After some creative rerouting last year, this year’s race will be held on the historic point-to-point course, Cable to Hayward.
A Main Street finish was hardly assured as of a few weeks ago, but recent snowfall has been kind to race organizers. As Ari Ofsevit ably summarized recent weather developments on birkieguide.com:
“It was a bit of a hopeful/gutsy call by the Birkie staff to put their faith in the weather forecast (and, to some extent, climatology) and go with the full course, but we will all be rewarded with a course which, I expect, will bear no resemblance to what it looked like a few weeks before.”
When will the race be?
Tomorrow, Saturday, February 22. For the skate race, the women’s Elite Wave starts at 8:30 a.m., with the Elite Men at 8:50 a.m. The Elite Wave for classic starts between the two, at 8:35 a.m.
Here is a full list of start times for all waves tomorrow:
How can you follow along?
The livestream goes up at 7 a.m. local time tomorrow. You can access that through the Birkie page here, or on the ABSF Facebook page here. The livestream is free. ABSF 1, FIS 0.
Results?
Here, generally. If that doesn’t work, follow links from here.
Best of luck to all racers.
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