Note: The opinions expressed in this article are the opinions of Rob Whitney and Ian Case. They do not neccessarily reflect the view of Fasterskier.com as an entity. Enjoy!
Swedish Skidsport.com has started a petition in an attempt to eliminate the mass start in pursuit and other long races that the World Cup has been favoring the last few years. Over 1000 fans in Sapporo have signed a petition with hundreds more signing on every day. Scandinavian news reports that Swedish and Norweigian TV viewers have been bored out-of-their minds watching cross country racers ski in a group for 99% of the race with lousy tempo, and then a furious sprint the last 200 meters!
 Or, Anders Aukland pulling away from DiCenta (or whomever it was), without any kick left on his skis on the last long climb of the Marcialonga the year FIS made it a World Cup event! How is this less exciting? Take a mountain stage in the Tour de France….things actually happen and athletes split apart. A flat Tour stage is boring, until the very end when someone ‘amazingly’ wins by 0.3 seconds….everyone basically went as fast as everyone else…in a 5+ hour race. Be it biking or skiing, one really doesn’t need to watch the first 99% of the race because it is completely uninteresting!</p>
<p>Why not bring the old 2-day pursuit back as well as more long individual start races? If people want to see a bunch of 200 meter sprints, why put the 29.8 km in front of the racers in the first place? Save your time and money on tickets and just attend the individual sprint race and the sprint relay race. </p>
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