Performance and Participation in the 'Vasaloppet' Cross-Country Skiing Race during a Century

• Main Authors: Romancuk, Nastja, Nikolaidis, Pantelis T, Villiger, Elias, Chtourou, Hamdi, Rosemann, Thomas, Knechtle, Beat
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI Publishing 2019
• Subjects: Institute of General Practice; 610 Medicine & health; Iceland
• Online Access: https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/171216/; https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/171216/1/Romancuk_Performance_and_Participation_in_the.pdf; https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-171216; https://doi.org/10.3390/sports7040086

This study investigated gender differences in performance and participation and the role of nationality during one century in one of the largest cross-country (XC) skiing events in the world, the 'Vasaloppet' in Sweden. The total number of female and male athletes who finished (n = 562,413) this race between 1922 and 2017 was considered. Most of the finishers were Swedish (81.03% of women and 88.39% of men), followed by Norwegians and Finnish. The overall men-to-women ratio was 17.5. A gender × nationality association was observed for participation (χ = 1,823.44, p < 0.001, φ = 0.057), with the men-to-women ratio ranging from 6.7 (USA) to 19.1 (Sweden). For both genders, the participation (%) of Swedish decreased, and that of all other nationalities (except Swiss) increased across years. Regarding the mean race time, men were faster than women by 14.5% (7 h 52 min 17 s versus 9 h 00 min 55 s, respectively). A trivial gender×nationality interaction regarding the race time was observed (p < 0.001, η < 0.001), with gender differences ranging from 4.4% (USA) to 22.0% (Iceland). The race time increased across calendar years for both women (r = 0.45, p = 0.006, moderate magnitude) and men (r = 0.25, p = 0.015, small magnitude). On the basis of these findings, we concluded that a relatively small number of women pariticipates in XC skiing. Therefore, the development of public health policies targeting the participation of women in XC skiing should be a concern in the countries with a tradition of this sport.