The Shoreline Sprints & Distance, America’s fastest growing rollerski event

On July 7th & 8th Rice Lake, Wi. will host this year’s edition The Shoreline Sprints & Distance.

The Shoreline rollerski competition is a brainchild of Kris and Bjorn Hanson, who ownOut There Nordic, a pro-xcski store & ski preps facility at Rice Lake.

As the name suggests, the races will take place on a shore of the local lake that attracts quite a few tourists in the summer. At least the Sprints will – distance race will be held more inland, on roads without traffic.

The level of competition? Well, both last year’s men races were won by the Canadian Olympian Graham Ritchie. Half a year later Ritchie went to become a part of the relay team at the World Championship in Planica, Slovenia where the Canadians ( quite sensationally) finished fifth, beating Sweden. Ritchie also came 4th in Team Sprint there. If that doesn’t say ” world class”, we don’t know what does.

Here, Ritchie gets his $1000 check for winning the Sprint race in 2022 and some Wisconsin cheese to take home

Another reason to sign up for a run is money – let’s not be shy about that. Modern Nordic skiing demands a lot of investment – winning competitions is a right way if offsetting at least some of the costs. That’s one reason Norway has more than a dozen rollerski races in different parts of the country the summer. It’s a win- win: fans and young athletes get to hang out with top skiers, the latter ones get a chance to augment their earnings a bit.

The Shoreline Sprints & Distance follow the same time- tested formula: prize pot for this year is some USD 11000, only AmBirkie mass race offers more in the North American region.

 

Says Bjorn Hanson: ” This is in no way commercial event for us – we are not looking to make money on it- just to help athletes.One thing that so many athletes are always complaining about is money. So we created an event for them to make money in the off-season. It is geared to elite athletes pursuing dreams of World Cups and the Olympics.”

 

The Shoreline Sprints & Distance is not quite BLINK Skifestival yet. But it looks a lot like what BLINK was some twenty years ago, at inception. Would the Shoreline become a massive multi-million dollar event in two decades? Who knows. What’s clear is that we all stand to gain from competitions and festivals like the one Hansons organize in Rice Lake growing and expanding . So, cheers to that – and many thanks to them.