The history of the Marcialonga and Ski Testing Day- January 25,2020

The Marcialonga- 47^th year!

The first edition of the Marcialonga was in 1971 by four Italian friends who had skied the legendary Vasaloppet in Sweden the year before. For the first six years of its running women were forbidden from participating. Interesting! Marcialonga means “long march”.

The race starts from the “plain” of Moena at an altitude of 1,150 metres above sea level and is 70 km long. Then it goes up the Fassa valley to Canazei and back down past Moena and Predazzo to Molina di Fiemme, finishing in Cavalese.

As it’s the day before the race we will take it easy today and drive to the stadium at Tesero to test the skis. Will it be skins or wax? Since the course is basically 18 km uphill followed by about 49 km slight downhill with a 3 km steep uphill to the finish it is really a double poling race. However, it’s very warm and will I slip a lot on the up hills if I go with wax? Ross is a fantastic at double poling but I am going to have a hard time double poling 49 km. Skin skis will drag on the down hill though. Tough decision!!