Continued time penalty for littering
The rule that adds a time penalty of 15 minutes if you are found to have littered where not allowed during your race is now in its third year. Last year, monitoring was strengthened with an increased number of inspectors, using better equipment, and Vasaloppet's Winter Week 2019 continues along the same track.
The Vasaloppet Arena is a nature reserve and the course runs over land owned by 900 different landowners. Littering is forbidden according to Swedish law and Vasaloppet has for several years worked towards a zero-tolerance approach to littering in the arena, but it has not had the desired effect until the 15-minute time penalty was introduced in 2017.
The rule applies to all participants during all races and, for example, a time penalty in Vasaloppet could lead to a participant moving down one start group in their seeding for 2020. In order to apply the time penalty there must be photographic evidence and Vasaloppet must be 100 percent certain when identifying participants.
Littering went down 90 percent in the Vasaloppet Arena during all Winter Week 2017 and 2018 races, excluding Vasaloppet where it has primarily been the first 3,000 skiers who have had a hard time following the rule.
When it comes to elite skiers, special dialogue is held every year and Vasaloppet requires that each team takes responsibility for, and picks up, any of their waste that is thrown along the track. All teams that Vasaloppet has been in contact with strongly support this position.
During the two years this rule has applied 20 or so participants in total, including both summer and winter events, have been found to have littered where not allowed and the 15-minute time penalty has been applied.
During Vasaloppet’s Winter Week 2019, throwing litter will be permitted in three different ways:
• In the bins at the Vasaloppet checkpoints
• In the marked littering zones between each Vasaloppet checkpoint
• Where you as a participant know that a team leader or associate will pick up what you throw
Good luck in forefathers’ tracks!
