The last edition of the race, January 4, 1997. -
DIMITRI GEORGANAS / AP / SIPA
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In the Netherlands, amateur skaters have been waiting since 1997 for the Elfstedentoch, a 200-kilometer race on frozen canals followed by the whole country.
Global warming threatens the event, which tries to reinvent itself in Austria while waiting for a miracle.
The popular expectation was immense.
The media pressure too, not to mention the politicians who always see it as a way to get people talking about them cheaply.
But Wiebe Wieling, president of the Royal Association of the Eleven Frisian Cities, did not give in.
This year again, the Elfstedentocht will not take place.
The Elfsteden what?
A legendary race organized on the frozen canals of the Dutch province of Friesland, eleven towns to connect before midnight and on skates over a 200-kilometer course, when the winter is cold enough to freeze the ice deep.
A true national monument.
“Organizing a race that can attract more than a million spectators during the Covid period very quickly seemed impossible to us,” explains fatalistic Wiebe Wieling.
Only fifteen editions since 1909
However, enthusiasm had risen to delusional levels given the weather forecasts: two weeks of (almost) polar temperatures in the pipes for February, and unprecedented excitement since 2012, the last time the race almost took place.
“Everyone was ready, we had organized a press conference in 24 hours,” recalls Wieling.
But the day before, we had to stop everything.
The ice had frozen only ten centimeters.
Now, imagine that it takes 15, officially, to let go of the pack: 30,000 skaters, and a thousand others on the waiting list, who are waiting to participate in the race of their lives once.
You have to be lucky.
The Elfstedentocht, barely 15 editions from 1909 to the present day, has not been run since 1997.
The winner of the time?
A certain Henk Angenant, proud as Artaban when you manage to reach him.
The former professional skater sets the scene for us: “I was the world record holder for the hour, but there is nothing stronger than winning this race for a Dutch athlete.
There were 11 million viewers when I won the sprint, and a poll showed that 85% of people in the Netherlands knew my name even today.
When you win the Elfstedentocht, you become part of history.
"
"85% of the Dutch know who I am"
A little le boulard, friend Angenant?
Not even, blows us Mark Hilberts, also present in 1997 and author of several books on this real phenomenon of society.
“We can compare at home with the winner of the Tour de France, Anquetil, Fignon, names like that.
And again, we can win the Tour every year!
A little more complicated for "the eleven cities race" which makes you visit the Netherlands like a postcard, with windmills, medieval towns, and small wooden bridges from the period.
"The Elfstedentocht represents the winter heritage of a country where there are as many skaters as there are inhabitants", says Alexis Metzger, author emeritus of a thesis on the cold in Holland in the Golden Age.
“As early as the 17th century, we find accounts of people who travel tens of kilometers on skates to visit relatives during very harsh winters.
Skating induces a form of equality between social classes.
This allows you to move around freely, without having to pay by taking barges or trains.
Skating is a cornerstone of Dutch identity.
"
The king is also a fanatic
In Friesland, where you can visit a museum dedicated to the “eleven towns race” all year round, even more than elsewhere.
In 1997, almost two million people took the trains by storm to witness the departure of the Elfstedentocht.
At 5.15 am, when the first professional competitors set off, we cracked smoke on the banks.
“The scarcity is the salt of the race, specifies Mark Hilberts.
Schools are all closed on this day and most businesses are closed, it's a great day for everyone.
"
In 1986, we even count on the starting line the future king of the Netherlands Willem-Alexander, hired under a false name to obtain the supreme award: the Elfstedentocht medal, only awarded to those who manage to complete the route before midnight.
"Madness takes hold of the country for a few hours," continues Wiebe Wieling nicely.
6.7% chance of seeing a new edition?
The enthusiasm never weakens, despite the obvious threat that lurks around the eleven cities: an increasingly marked warming of temperatures, which makes future editions each time more improbable.
In 2005, the Dutch Prime Minister was moved by this in a speech on climate change.
“When I was born in 1956, the probability of doing a marathon on ice skates in the eleven towns of Friesland was one in four.
When my daughter was born in 1999, that possibility had diminished to one in ten.
A huge change in a generation.
Fifteen years later, local weather specialists estimate that there is a 6.7% chance each year for ice that is frozen enough to compete in the race.
The latest edition of the race, in 1997. - AFP
The most bitten of all have resolved to fall back on the poor man's Elfstedentocht in Austria, at Wiessensee, where the winters have kept their harshness of yesteryear.
Henk Angenant, our 1997 winner, went there once to see, but it was not thrilled.
“You have to do it several times around a lake, the same one, with almost no public around.
I never went back there.
Mark Hilberts repeated the experiment several times, which does not prevent him from worrying about the original.
“It will be 25 years since there has been a race, we have never had to wait so long in history.
So okay, it's Elfstedentocht's magic not to know when it's coming back, but there are more and more kids growing up without seeing it with their own eyes.
By force, this legendary race will end up disappearing.
"
A fatal outcome that the president of the Royal Association of the Eleven Frisian cities refuses to consider.
The Honorable Wiebe Wieling “strongly believes in the theory of successive harsh winters.
On two occasions we were able to run the edition three times in a row [1940-41-42, 1985-86-87], and I am hopeful of at least one window of shooting in the next three or four. years ”.
The clock is ticking for everyone: Wieling will have to leave her job in five years, and it wouldn't give her a damn to retire without having said a single “It Giet Oan” [the top start in original version], right?
Amused response from the guy, who is used to getting roomed by the media: "You know, there is a president who arrived in 1964, just after the coldest edition in history, and he left in 1983. , just before returning from racing for the first time in 20 years.
I will hardly do worse than him.
" Indeed.
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