Elfstedentocht | Hacker News Reader

Elfstedentocht

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295 pointsstevage124 comments

This is kind of the equivalent of the Superbowl for the Dutch, but due to global warming it hasn't been held in 24 years. The previous longest interval was 22 years, so some people are starting to doubt whether it will ever happen again.

Imagine if the real Superbowl wasn't held in 24 years due to global warming and may never happen again, perhaps then it would be more of a priority.

> This is kind of the equivalent of the Superbowl for the Dutch

Uh, I'm not too familiar with the Superbowl, but the title of 'most popular televised sporting event in the Netherlands' definitely goes to the football world championship.

> 'most popular televised sporting event in the Netherlands'

It's not hard to compete for that title when your competition hasn't had a televised event in 24 years...

More generally, the national ice skating championships are also nowhere near as popular as the national football championship (Eredivisie).

Not every sporting event that uses a football is the same, neither is every sporting event that uses ice skates.

Ur digging in your heels pretty hard, but most dutch are disagreeing with you (myself included).

It's just not a very fitting analogy.

Sorry if it seems I'm digging in my heels on the "equivalent" part, I should've worded that differently. If you were trying to find an equivalent Dutch sporting event to the Superbowl it would be the Eredivisie.

But the point of the analogy was not to make a perfect equivalence to the Elfstedentocht, that would be impossible. The point was to convey to an American audience some semblance of the national importance of this particular sporting event.

I tried looking for a source but couldn't find it: I read years ago that a survey with the question "Would you rather have an elfstedentocht or win the World Cup" was answered predominantly with the former. I've used that as an example of how important this event is for the Dutch when explaining it to my foreign friends. I'll keep looking for a source, but no doubt the elfstedentocht is one of the most important events in Dutch culture regardless.

That is very surprising to me. I wonder if that would still hold today, where everyone under 24 and a good deal of people a couple years older than that have never consciously experienced an Elfstedentocht. I mean, it'd be nice, but... Winning the World Cup, as arguably the foremost nation that has never done so before, we'd certainly go crazy.

Meh, I’m 33 now. I can’t remember the last elfstedentocht, but I’d still vote for that over winning the world cup any day.

The world cup is great for sitting together and drinking beer. But we can do that without winning.

I'm Dutch. I'm confused why anyone would downvote this comment. Parent has said nothing controversial or wrong, and did not violate any rules.

> the title of 'most popular televised sporting event in the Netherlands' definitely goes to the football world championship

Source? The last Elfstedentocht in 1997 had 9.2 million people watching it [1], while the semi-final of the Dutch national team in the world cup in 2014 had 9.1 million people watching it [2], and population had grown by ~1.5 million people in between.

[1] https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vijftiende_Elfstedentocht#Reco... [2] https://kijkonderzoek.nl/component/kijkcijfers/file,j1-6-1-p

I get your comparison to Superbowl to highlight the popularity to people abroad. A sibling mentions the football world championship.

But other than popularity there's big differences. Both Superbowl and world cup are highly organized, highly commercial events, planned way in advance, where top athletes perform.

The Elfstedentocht always comes unexpectedly. When there is a cold snap in the weather, a fever starts brewing among the population. As ice grows thicker people from all walks of life start to get involved to organize the event. Pumping stations stop their operation to improve ice conditions, crossings are created on patches of bad ice where one walks with skates over land (called 'kluunen'), and all across the track people start to sell hot chocolate and soup. The event is a huge social happening, not just for the top athletes. The people that come last over the finish line or the ones that just did not make it within the set timeframes are as much heroes as the winner of the tour.

Elfstedentocht is very much an event by the people, not an entertainment provided for the people.

Sounds like Vasaloppet, but rarer. It does have an organizer though, but still huge amounts of volunteers along and it's definitely an achievement just to complete it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasaloppet

> As ice grows thicker people from all walks of life start to get involved to organize the event.

This is not completely accurate. Sure, koek-en-zopie stuff might be organized by local restaurants or whatever, but the Elfstedentocht itself is prepared (almost) completely every single year. There is a whole foundation with internal hierarchy that oversees the process. The whole parcourse can be constructed on a 48 hour notice. The waterschappen don't stop their pumps out of hospitality or something, it is all pretty well organized.

"The waterschappen don't stop their pumps out of hospitality or something,"

So do they get compensation?

I don't actually know, but waterschappen are elected bodies (in elections that are completely separate from those for local and national government, and in which all residents, including foreigners, can vote).

Presumably making the effort to allow skating is a vote winner. Even in places outside Friesland, when it looks like skating will be possible various authorities take steps to encourage ice formation by closing sluice gates and stopping boat traffic.

I don't think they do, pretty sure they stop out of hospitality..

It's actually pretty well organised, since it's a big event, lots of things need to come together to be able to organise it in 48hrs time. Also the Dutch government has classified it as a so-called 'GRIP-1' type event, which means that all kinds of things have to be coordinated with the local & national government.

There is a great documentary (in Dutch) that shows what the foundation behind the Elfstedentocht has to go through every year to make sure they're ready in case the conditions are right to organise the race, not sure if it's available outside of NL:

https://www.npostart.nl/VPWON_1302414

Believe it or not, in a lot of modern countries around the world, compensation is not the guiding priority of society.

> Imagine if the real Superbowl wasn't held in 24 years due to global warming and may never happen again, perhaps then it would be more of a priority.

Given how much of a priority climate change has been in the Netherlands... I don't think so. Though I guess part of it is because it wasn't a guaranteed every-year event in the first place, so it's not that much of a change.

> Given how much of a priority climate change has been in the Netherlands...

This is an important point for those who don't live in The Netherlands. NL has done an amazing job of marketing how 'green' they are, but has been really terrible at addressing climate change or even hitting their own climate targets.

Indeed. The Dutch are good with water, but not with climate. May be due to lobbying power of Shell, NAM (natural gas) and Rotterdam harbour, Schiphol airport, Tata Steel, etc. on subsequent economic liberal governments, and also 'Polder model' [0] slowing / watering things down.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polder_model

I think it’s partly the effect of being an outlier in terms of population density (makes it harder to build wind or solar farms), natural resources (few possibilities for hydro-electricity, for example), and quality of farmland (moving production to poorer grounds often isn’t a net win, globally)

There also may be an effect that making Dutch agriculture greener makes it more competitive, increasing output and thus offsetting improvements in efficiency.

But yes, such a rich country that isn’t really dependent on its agricultural output should be able to do more. Stopping fertilizer imports probably would help a lot.

> population density (makes it harder to build wind or solar farms)

This is more an excuse than an actual reason. Because the Dutch have large patches of shallow sea: which is ideal for building huge scale windparks that are, relatively cheap. The "ground" can still be used for fishing, so you hardly loose anything. Yet even building parks in sea is met with strong opposition. From wildlife preservation orgs to people complaining that this will ruin their view over the sea.

Furthermore, the IJsselmeer and Markmermeer have often been suggested as "energy storage" where water is pumped up a few meters by wind, or overcapacity electro. The Netherlands, has, in fact, build some of the largest dams in the world, but "forgot" to use them as power stations. Anyone who has ever visited Neeltje-Jans, for example, will see the opportunity to harvest some of the enormous amounts of water being pushed through the Netherlands. I live on the riverside of the Waal (part of the Rhine), where currently over 7000m³/second of (in winter warm-ish and in summer cold-ish) water passes by my office-window. There must be ways to harvest some of this energy.

There is a lack of will and a lack of urgency. Not a lack of opportunities.

You need height to get ‘serious’ hydro power. In the Netherlands, the Rhine water drops by less than 20 meters across the entire country (ballpark 100km), so I think a 1 m drop already would be optimistic.

So let’s take that 7000m³ and drop it by a meter. That’s dropping 7 million kg of water by one meter, or (if my math is right) about 70 MW of potential energy. You might get somewhat more out by decreasing the speed at which the water flows, but I doubt that would be much (the more you slow the water down, the larger the river downstream has to be)

Also, that’s if you dam the entire river. The Waal is a major river for shipping, so you can’t do that.

Finally, I think 7000m³/s is an outlier. Google gives me 1500m³/s flow rate for the Waal (and, consistent with that, 2000m³/s for the Rhine). So, on average, a system damming of the whole river, requiring all ships to go through locks, would produce about 15MW.

And I think my math is at least in the right ballpark. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beauharnois_generating_station generates “up to 1,903 MW of electrical power”, but it has a water drop of 24 meters, and runs in a river that has an average discharge about equal to that peak of that of the Waal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Lawrence_River: “The average discharge at the river's source, the outflow of Lake Ontario, is 7,410 m³/s”), and, I would guess, is designed for somewhere around that average discharge, dropping surplus water over an overflow system. So, that would account for a factor of 24 (times the height) × 5 (flow rate)

I deliberately did not talk about damming the river. Doing that would cause a lot of problems for shipping. And my house would flood for sure.

The math is simpler though: potential energy is massXheight. So any one of those can be high. Small hydropower (I built this in Switzerland for fun) using a long pipe and a reversed pump can deliver significant power from a tiny brook, if the height is enough.

If you increase the height of the entire IJsselmeer with 10cm, that is an enormous mass, a gigantic potential energy.

Whether one can economically extract that power is a different issue.

The temp diff is another potential energy. As is the kinetic energy (the water is going really fast!).

We can spend hours debating why things cannot be done, but that has never brought innovation.

IJsselmeer would be storage, not extracting power.

Also, building stuff “for fun” is different from doing things at scale and come out ahead. As you say “Whether one can economically extract that power is a different issue”, but, in this context, IMO of utmost importance.

I don’t think there are easy gains at scale to be had there.

There’s a reason only a few small plants exist (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroelectricity_in_the_Nether...)

> Imagine if the real Superbowl wasn't held in 24 years due to global warming and may never happen again, perhaps then it would be more of a priority.

I don't think that is a good comparison. The Superbowl is held every year, but the Elfstedentocht has always been a rare event depending on extreme winter conditions. From the first event in 1909 until 1997 there have been 15 of them, with the longest break between 1963 and 1985.

So glad that as a small brnt I first used an alarm to get up and watch the 1997 edition in full. You're right, I've the feeling that my first is going to be my last as well.

Superbowl doesn't do it justice, it's much more than that.

It's not the equivalent of the superbowl for the Dutch. It was never a yearly competition to begin with. It was always a very rare and unpredictable event- the 4th edition took place 12 years after the third, and the gap had nothing to do with climate change: it was 1929.

And it sounds like there was the potential to hold it this year but they preemptively canceled it because of covid.

Isn't 24 years well past the point of anyone caring? That's a whole generation of people becoming adults without ever experiencing the event. I think after 24 years without Superbowl, Americans would just consider it a historical curiosity, and holding it again wouldn't be a national priority.

It only makes the event more mythological. Also, it's easy for non-Dutch to underestimate how big of a deal speedskating is to the Dutch (and how big of a deal the Dutch are in speedskating). EDIT: I'll attempt to give an impression.

The medal count at the 2018 Winter Olympics might be a good starting point, look at how the Dutch dominated that event[0]. Keep in mind that we're a really tiny nation, so that suggests a disproportionate amount of Olympic-level speedskaters per capita. Which only makes sense if it's a really big sport here.

Another example: I assume that when you ask the average American who Shani Davis is you'll get a blank stare, despite his great achievements[1]. Ask the average Dutch person and they'll know, and might even tell you about "that cute fridge-scene with the Erben Wennemars picture"[2][3].

Now let's compare other nations where speedskating is still a thing. Nao Kodara might be a bit more famous in Japan than Davis is in the US, but check out her Twitter bio and you'll see a photo of the Elfstedentocht monument[4][5][6]. To professional speedskaters all over the world, the Dutch are an example (the fact that we often love them more than most people in their own country probably doesn't hurt either).

So yeah, speedskating is deeply embedded in the Dutch national identity, arguably even more than soccer because it feels like our sport.

You do make me wonder if narratives around national identity work a little differently on smaller scales though (remember that the Netherlands is a small nation of about 17.5 million people). Maybe the US is too big for a thing like this.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_skating_at_the_2018_Wint...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shani_Davis

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWNKa6eK2NU

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erben_Wennemars

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nao_Kodaira

[5] https://twitter.com/Nao_kodaira

[6] https://yktoo.com/en/blog/post/2015/11/22-the-monument-of-el...

I didn't know [2], but that was lovely.

That said, the same things you said hold for Korfball as well, which definitely doesn't whip up the same fervour as an Elfstedentocht does.

Speak for yourself, I played korfball for twelve years ;). Jokes aside, korfball isn't an olympic sport, and it didn't have Ard & Keessie to popularize it either.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ard_Schenk

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kees_Verkerk

> Maybe the US is too big for a thing like this

I think you yourself don't realise that not everyone in the Netherlands cares about speed skating and the Elfstedentocht.

I'm Dutch. Early twenties. I go roller blading in the summer, and I speed skate in the winter if weather permits.

But the Elfstedentocht? It has never taken place during my life. My friends and I don't care about the Elfstedentocht at all because we've simply never experienced it. We don't get the "Elfstedentochtkoorts" whenever the mercury drops below 0. Not at all.

> deeply embedded in the Dutch national identity, arguably even more than soccer

I bet the average young person from Rotterdam cares a whole lot more about Feyenoord and the Dutch football team than they care about some 200km speed skating contest that very rarely takes place in a province in the north.

You make a good point, and I think I could have phrased that more clearly. I meant that it arguably is more Dutch than soccer is, because soccer is big in every country that isn't the US.

But you're right that I didn't take age into account. I'm in my late thirties, I remember skating on natural ice almost every winter during my childhood. I don't know if you had the same experience.

"our sport" is Fierljeppen.

While the Elfstedentocht hasn't been held in 24 years, in that period we've had quite a few winters with enough frost to hold smaller, regional tour tour skating events (which can still attract 50,000+ people over the span of a few days). At least twice we came within a few days of organizing the Elfstedentocht. It's enough to keep the spirit alive, and it makes the event itself even more mythical.

I remember the excitement and hype growing as a teenager, back in 1985 when it was about to happen again. Epic stories about 1963, predictions about favorites who spent hours in freezers to prepare, talk about how the winner would become immortal (Evert van Bentem, still remember his name, he won again 2 years later.) It was obviously broadcast live on local TV too.

And that was all just in Belgium.

It’s a huge thing.

Better move to e.g. Sweden then:

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2018/feb/10/sweden-ice-sk...

Lake Zürich (Zürisee) last froze in 1963.

Videos: https://youtu.be/eauucwl6C24

Short docu-film (DE) https://youtu.be/3_N-wWNXdmQ

More details (DE) https://www.stadt-zuerich.ch/pd/de/index/stadtpolizei_zueric...

Previous years with a frozen lake:

> 1223 / 1259 / 1262 / 1407 / 1491 / 1514 / 1517 / 1573 / 1600 / 1660 / 1684 /1695 / 1709 / 1716 / 1718 / 1740 / 1755 / 1763 / 1789 / 1830 / 1880 / 1891 / 1895 / 1929 / 1963

It’s something I expect to never experience - but life can be surprising!

—-

Edit: would be interesting if there was a correlation between the years above and volcanic winters throughout history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter

Do you know if lake Zug froze over as well? Having lived in the area for a while some time ago those videos are really interesting, pretty surprising, and even quite funny!

Yes, seems in 1929 and 1963 as well.

https://www.zg.ch/behoerden/staatskanzlei/staatsarchiv/publi...

Here’s a funny old video from the Bodensee (Lake Constance): https://youtu.be/FX6HrNxYdd4

Lakes can also be subject to tsunamis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tauredunum_event

Wow, fascinating to learn

As wiki says the current king took part in the last one (he wasn't a king yet back then). And he is very proud of it - all participants get a pin (elfstedenkruisje) and he wears it next to the other "medals" he has even for official occasions

https://www.omropfryslan.nl/nieuws/248240-koning-draagt-elfs...

EDIT: just to add: I'm not a royal bootlicker. I just think it's one of a funny wacky things he does. Like participating in the "throw the toilet" competition

We are so proud. A real man of the peoples.

And as our prime minister strongly advised his fellow countrymen to avoid travelling abroad unnecessarily last October as the virus spread and our economy took a hit, our king and his royal family sat on their royal arses in a government plane en-route to the private royal holiday home in Greece for a well-deserved royal holiday break. He was already aware of the prime minister's message before he left; he just didn't think it applied to him nor did he think about the example he was setting.

They were back the very next day due to the resulting commotion.

Another swathe of Dutchmen turned republican that day. Their popularity has taken a dive the past few years. (The sooner we get rid of this outdated institution the better.)

You forgot to mention we pay him a lot of money each year.

I don't mind him being paid. I would like to see him and his family taxed though.

I mean there's something slightly silly about taxing someone who's income is 100% taxes.

There is more than income tax.

Most of which they're not exempted from, but either way as long as their main source of income is tax money then you could achieve much the same by just giving them less money.

And not just him, but also every other royal hanger on including his 18 year old brat that gets 100K per month.

And that this 53-year old man has no personal responsibility, which is deferred to the government.

The organisation behind it has already ruled there wont be an event this year no matter how thick the ice gets. But people get the “fever” every time the temperature drops below 0 Celcius. This happens every year, it’s a thing.

Also because of next month’s elections some opportunistic/populistic partys are using this event as the hill to die on, hoping to catch some votes and ignoring what people might really be catching in case of such an event.

As some journalists have noted: the 'fever' shows up mostly below the imaginary line you get if you connect the cities of Alkmaar and Zwolle. That is, there is no 'fever' in the province of Fryslân (or Frisia in English) where the event is held and treasured most dearly.

Here in the province people are resigned to the event not happening this year, due to a lack of decent ice and Covid. There will be plenty of skating this weekend, but nothing on the scale of the Elfstedentocht.

And indeed, the brandishing of this event by the populist leaders of the two farright political parties in the Netherlands as something that absolutely must go on if the ice does shape up, leaves a sour taste in many a Frisian's mouth. (Source: I'm a born and bred Frisian living there.)

"due to a lack of decent ice "

Well, at least the ice should be there, soon?

Seems doubtful at this point. The quality of the ice is quite bad up North because of the snow (you get brittle snowy ice), and the weather predications note a 75% chance of thaw setting in come Monday:

https://www.knmi.nl/nederland-nu/weer/verwachtingen

Some people might go skating in the weekend, but really, the thickness of the ice is pretty minimal. As the local ice master says:

> Der sil hjir en dêr wol wat riden wurde, mar dat is de ferantwurdlikens fan minsken sels. Wy sille de sleatten en fearten noch net frij jaan. Dat sjoch ik der net fan kommen. Ik jou pas grien ljocht as der op bepaalde plakken in smak minsken oer it iis kin.

(https://www.lc.nl/friesland/IJsmeester-acht-kans-op-schaatse...)

That is: he won't green-light the ice for safe use by the public, and it is quite literally nowhere near the thickness required for a mass event.

Tangential observation: Google Translate detects your text as Frisian, but regardless of whether I select Frisian or Dutch, it gives an identical translation into English. Which is it really? And are the two languages really so similar that Google should be able to understand them interchangeably?

It is West-Frisian (Frysk), and the languages are close, but so are Dutch and German or West-Frisian and German (so not that close).

I'm not getting the behaviour you describe though. It detects West-Frisian and does a passable translation, but if I force it to see Dutch as the source it makes no sense of it at all.

It is also failing quite hilariously on „in smak minsken”, which means “quite a bunch of people”, but gets translated as “a taste people”. Google sees „smak” as a misspelling of „smaak” (taste), but it means “a bunch” or “many”.

You are right: I tried again and I can't reproduce the behavior. Perhaps I got confused and selected Frisian twice, the first time I tried. (Google's UI lists it as simply "Frisian" for me, not West-Frisian).

I think most people call it Frisian. West-Frisian is used formally because other (mostly historic) variants exist.

What is now the province of Frisia is only a modest part of what was once a larger kingdom stretching into the North-East of modern Germany (where Ost Friesland is the name of a region in Niedersachsen still). Confusingly, in the Netherlands there is a West-Friesland as well to the West of the province, but people don't speak or understand (West-)Frisian there.

"Nei twa kear nachtfroast wol de Hollanner der foar

Hy ropt om 't hurdst: 'de tocht der tochten, die gaat door'

Mar wy Friezen witte better

iis is samar ek wer wetter

En dus hâlde wy de kiezzen op elkoar"

„It kin net!”

Which means “It's not possible!”, but sounds like “It's just barely possible!” to Dutch not used to the language and dialects from the North of the country.

This commercial was popular back in the day, and is a tongue-in-cheek exploration of this topic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUXiqkAKr-0

(Piss-poor quality recording unfortunately, but many Dutch here will remember having seen it.)

Last I heard, the organization said "the event cannot be held with the current corona rules". Which leaves a lot of room, specifically if the government decides to amend the rules. Besides, if the ice does seem like it will be good enough (which might be if the cold snap seems to hold for next week as well) I think the fever will start increasing in Friesland. Once that starts happening, public pressure will also start to mount.

I cannot imagine anyone catching covid while traveling at 40 km/h over the ice.

It’s basically impossible to get outside in the first place (unless you are standing mouth to mouth with someone).

> I cannot imagine anyone catching covid while traveling at 40 km/h over the ice.

The big issue isn't the skating itself, but the logistics at start/finish and the stempelposten with its congestion, as well as the 1 to 1.5 million spectators over a course of 200 km with their parties and alcohol consumption, and the logistics to get everyone there and back (full trains and busses).

> It’s basically impossible to get outside in the first place (unless you are standing mouth to mouth with someone).

Source?

I’m extrapolating from my experiences, though I don’t think research disagrees with me here.

Here is the first one I could find: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.04.20053058v...

> We identified only a single outbreak in an outdoor environment, which involved two cases. The first salient feature of the 318 identified outbreaks that involved three or more cases is that they all occurred in indoor environments.

And another: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/medrxiv/early/2020/09/10/202...

> A database of more than 20,000 cases (including the 7,324 Chinese cases) found 461 that were associated with transmission in completely outdoor environments — predominantly crowded events like markets and rallies. (emphasis mine)

Your points about attendant risks are probably true though. People will definitely congregate to drink beer and eat soup, and we’ll have another carnival on our hands :/

You seem to be making a few statements based on gut feeling instead of hard numbers. While I also think (opinion, I have no facts to back it) that being outside is safer than staying indoors, I don't think organizing an event is safe.

I mean the Netherlands got their first major outbreak thanks to carnaval last year, which is a partially outdoor event. Another one, in the US, the Sturgis motorcycle rally created a big wave in spreading the 'rona (https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6947e1.htm)

I've been using inline roller skates as my primary mode of transportation for the past month. The city I am currently in was clearly not designed for bike or skate traffic, but some newer areas are more accommodating. I've managed to do anything I would have used a car for, on skates. It certainly requires more logistical creativity, but it's a much more enjoyable experience and has no adverse environmental effects.

I would be thrilled to participate in an Elfstedentocht. I am somewhat trained and have my own figure skates, though I'd want speed skates for this event. The 200km seems doable, especially since there would be no elevation changes.

The cold is grueling though.

Nothing you can't cure with some newspapers under your clothing.

Well back in my day we put hay in our clogs and had to ice skate uphill.

Some context: the Elfstedentocht has become pretty rare due to climate change. Now guess what, while currently being in lockdown, the possibility for an Elfstedentocht is increasing since it's pretty cold to our standards right now. This Elfstedentocht typically attracts hundred thousands of people. Interesting times.

If the weather allowed it, it would be a real shame to ban it due to Corona. Maybe it's possible to restrict the number of participants and spread them out more. And maybe also restrict or spread out the spectators. Of course it takes place over such a large area that it's impossible to police everything, but they can probably address the hotspots.

But at the same time, it's such an iconic event, it may be hard to stop people if it does take place. Is it worth risking a Corona super-spreader event for possibly the last Elfstedentocht ever?

It's not worth the risk. The organising committee has ruled out the event happening this year because of Covid and the risk of creating a super-spreader event.

There is no risk. Corona hysteria has gone out of hand. Even here on hacker news. Elfstedentocht is a perfect moment to say goodbye to all Corona measures and get back to normal life and accept that the virus is amongst us.

It would be a shame to overwhelm hospitals and have thousands more die just when the end is within reach through vaccination.

In a hypothetical alternative universe where there is no vaccine in sight I might agree with this, but now we are just on the cusp of rolling out wide-spread vaccinations. It would waste all of the last years' measures.

Not quite true. The statement released 14 hours ago says:

"het is onder de huidige corona-maatregelen niet mogelijk en niet verantwoord een Elfstedentocht te organiseren." (www.elfstedentocht.frl/geen-elfstedentocht/)

Which means that, under the current measures taken by our government, it is not possible, nor responsible to organize an 11 stedentocht. Their main point is that it is not possible to organize the event and get everyone to stick to 1.5 meters.

Besides that, they also state they think it would be irresponsible to organize an event that would attract hunderds of thousands of people, and put more pressure on hospitals.

Admittedly, that final point would not change if the government decided to grant an exception. But such an exception would be cause to re-evaluate this decision. Since the current rules are such a large part of the justification of this decision.

The whole point of it is that it's such a massive thing with tons of (fairly amateur) people partaking as well. If you just want to skate for 200 km you can go to one of the colder countries and do it every year.

Isn't it also due to heightened security measures, which have increased in pretty much every sport over the decades? The non-race of 2012 sounds like it possibly could have happened and I would assume would have happened in the ~40s under similar conditions.

What sort of heightened security measures? I think nothing of the sort would hamper an Elfstedentocht.

The Vierdaagse is also a mass volunteer-driven event and it happens regularly.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Four_Days_Marc...

I think they meant safety as in 'assurance no one will fall through the ice'. As in, by the standards of the 40s they might have let the 2012 race go on despite the ice quality.

Yes, exactly!

In 1940 the ice had a record 41cm of thickness, in 1941 and 1942 the winters were harsh and the thickness of the ice was not a concern either. Only in 1917 was the ice on the thin side at 15cm, which is the minimal thickness for the event to be considered still today.

The standards haven't changed much. The climate has.

I mean the sort that tries to make sure that everything possible is done to ensure the safety of the participants. E.g. halos (and many other things) in F1 cars, helmets in baseball, minimizing crosswinds in ski flying, etc..

For Elfstedentocht this could mean making sure the ice is 15cms thick along the entire track, and only starting it if you are 100% sure that this is guaranteed. I would question whether the organization in the past was that strict, or the ice thickness could be as accurately and quickly measured along the entire track as today.

Regulations and what risks are deemed acceptable for sporting events change all the time and have led to huge alterations and the end of certain recurring events in a lot of sports. So (partially) independent from climate change, safety concerns might just cause the end of Elfstedentocht.

No, this is not an issue for this particular event. The last time we came close was 2012, but even then the ice was only 10 or 12cm thick on large parts of the route. This is most emphatically the result of a changing climate. On eleven of the fifteen occurrences of this event the ice measured 25cm of thickness.

Do you have any source for the historic values of ice thickness? Not questioning it, but I've tried to look around for such a statistic before writing the first comment, but I wasn't able to find anything.

No primary source (although these exist obviously), but the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute has a summary:

https://www.knmi.nl/kennis-en-datacentrum/uitleg/ijsdikte-en...

Thanks!

> this could mean making sure the ice is 15cms thick along the entire track, and only starting it if you are 100% sure that this is guaranteed.

I'm unable to find any official decision-making rules, let alone historical ones, but as stated elsewhere it's doubtful that the regulations have got more strict. The event has happened only 6 times in the last 70 years, in any case.

Where it is useful, there is work to control water flow via locks, ice transplantation into weak points, and legal prevention of canal navigation. So, there is also more knowledge and ability to mitigate for safety concerns.

> Now guess what, while currently being in lockdown, the possibility for an Elfstedentocht is increasing since it's pretty cold to our standards right now.

It's increased above the 0% it is when the temperature is above freezing, but there has never been any realistic scenario for there to be enough ice to hold it this year: significant parts of the route didn't yet have any ice yesterday. The weather predictions currently also predict increasing temperatures.

To add, if I recall correctly (I was 11 at the time) the 1997 event was only possible due to emergency shutdowns of factories (warm waste water) and 'ice transplants' where they moved tons of ice around into the main Elfstedentocht waters.

The current situation https://www.friescheijsbond.frl/schaatskaart

Blue = water or ice <15cm

Green = ice >15cm

Wow I didn't know Fryslan (Friesland) has its own tld, that pretty cool.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.frl

It's pretty cool.

About the province's name though: it's Fryslân (West Frisian (a language spoken in the province) and official Dutch), Frisia (English), or Friesland (Dutch vernacular).

The reason it is called 'Friesland' on English language Wikipedia has to with the fact that there are (seemingly) no acceptable sources that can prove that Frisia is what most Frisian folk call their province in English, and what English speaking folk that have some dealings with the province do too. Of course, often the official West Frisian and Dutch name of 'Fryslân' is used as well in various documents and publications, but due to a number of non-Frisian Dutch Wikipedians who hate that the official name can be used in English instead of the Dutch vernacular 'Friesland' (language politics, often bordering on rather nasty nationalistic sentiments), English Wikipedia uses the vernacular Dutch name that is neither the common exonym (Frisia) nor the official name and endonym (Fryslân).

> no acceptable sources that can prove that Frisia is what most Frisian folk call their province in English

That is fascinating, I get why Wikipedia has to be careful with what sources are acceptable, but it produces the weirdest conflicts sometimes.

Thanks for correcting me and sharing this!

Don't get me started. There is a town in this province called Grou, which was called Grouw (extra 'w') in Dutch until the Frisian (which was always 'Grou') and Dutch names were made the same thirty years ago. It's only a small town (a village really), so the further you get away from the province, the less known it is.

This is fine.

In the province of Fryslân many people speak Dutch as the first (or only) language, and many people Frisian. The town is called 'Grou' in nearly all Dutch language publications. That includes tourist sites in Dutch, newspapers in Dutch, municipal records in Dutch, the local train station, the bus stops, and most importantly, what the inhabitants of the village call themselves, in Frisian, as well as is in Dutch.

This is fine.

So on the Dutch language Wikipedia, the village is stubbornly called 'Grouw', because that is its Dutch name (it isn't). And the Wikipedians whose hobby it is to defend such choices go to extreme lengths to defend this choice. It doesn't matter that the ground-truth is that the old Dutch name is no longer used (in Dutch!), but only that there are no sources that are not government sources (because these are biased to the formal name, which might not be what people use), and is not a local source, because, hey, the locals are all Frisians (who often speak Dutch as their first language), and this is the Dutch Wikipedia. There is however, an academic source from the official Dutch language institute that lists the old name as the Dutch name of that village, and until that list is changed, Wikipedia will bravely defend the use of a name no one uses.

I think the relevant Wikipedia policy that makes this possible will change some time soon, which in local Wikipedia time means a few more years of this nonsense.

The village itself mostly doesn't care, and just goes on calling itself whatever it bloody well pleases them (which is, barring some odd exceptions, Grou).

I live in the same municipality and find this Wikipedia situation amusing/annoying/disturbing, because Wikipedia is the first thing anyone writing about the village grabs for the bare facts. That the name there is simply and plainly wrong is noted by many, but not by all, which is, incidentally, also why Facebook and Instragram automatically tag posts and addresses from Grou as 'Grouw', thus further perpetuating an untruth.

Sorry for the rant. :)

There's a small chance that Goru caves and changes their name - the extra W in Grouw standing for Wikipedia.

Not likely in the digital age perhaps, but I'm sure there must have been places that have got their names changed because tertiary resources called them thus.

And of course there is the classic “you are now called 'X' because I've got a (bigger) gun and/or bring [what I consider superior] civilization”, but that's a rather different beast (e.g., Formosa, Batavia, New Zealand, Ayers Rock).

When I was a kid, I grew up in the US where we had snow in the winter but we had to walk or take a bus to school.

People would say folks in scandanavian countries were able to skate to school or work and we would all just dream how amazing it would be.

I grew up in a Scandinavian country but have never been able to skate to school. We have a lot of snow and ice but only the ice on the lakes and the arenas has been appropriate for skating where I grew up. The ice on the roads between my home and my schools has not been skateable with skates. Short stretches of it maybe.

If there's no sand, you could use a potkukelkka / kick sled. Back in the old times, old people especially could use this to get to the store when it was very slippery.

https://retkirent.fi/listings/813151-esla-potkukelkka-taittu...

Yeah, skating is only applicable if there is a lake between where you are and where you're going.

But what I did as a kid up in the mountains in Norway was using a kicksled if it was icy, or skiis if it was snowy. Full send down the 2 km hill to school, I think everyone in my neighborhood grew up learning to be adrenaline junkies.

Perhaps you are not implying so, but Netherlands is not Scandinavia and is located a fair bit further south.

Katie Couric is coming under fire for saying ice skating is an “important mode of transportation” for people who live in Amsterdam.

:) I remember these clips, was funny :)

We can only hope that maybe this year we will have another Elfstedentocht :)

The organizers have been pretty clear that they're not going to hold one during COVID, so I'd judge the chances to be extremely small, no matter what Thierry "GOAT IET OAN" Baudet says.

They said they are ready to hold an elfstedentocht within 48 hours, if there is any change to the rules though, so it would need both full ice formation and government intervention. Not holding any hopes though.

Political pressure will be enormous if the conditions are right in a week or so. With elections happening in a month or so, it's unlikely the rules won't change as political pressure mounts. You have to imagine covid being secondary to this news item in the Netherlands between now and when this decision needs to happen.

The flip side is that for 10-15 centimeters of ice to happen over a 200km route, the freezing temperatures have to hold for quite a bit more time (a week plus). Current predictions are not inconsistent with that but of course a lot can happen in that time. That being said; it's been quite a while since we've seen these kinds of temperatures hold for this long.

> it's unlikely the rules won't change as political pressure mounts.

No. It's extremely unlikely the rules WILL change. With curfew extended for another month, there is an as good as zero chance they will drop 1.5m rules (which is what the committee has based their decision on) before March.

An exception being made for the event, perhaps with strong travel restrictions towards the event, seems within the realm of possibility.

For better or for worse, the dutch government has shown pretty big flexibility and a willingness to deviate from stated plans based on new information and public pressure. I would say there's at least a 20% chance the government would change rules to allow this to happen.

Certainly not this winter, but who knows, maybe in december. Not very likely though: december is generally not cold enough. There has been only one Elfstedentocht in december in its whole history.

Nah not going to happen; they need at least two weeks of serious frost for that, and as it stands, we'll get above zero weather again during the day next week. The sun seems to be melting a lot of the snow as well at the moment.

Any HNers ever participated and want to share their experience?

My last name (see username) is similar to one of the cities.

Many people spell my name wrong because they know the city and write it the way the city is spelled.

Hinloopen (my name) vs Hindeloopen (the city)

in the Dutch movie "Kenau" about the 1572 siege of Haarlem and the city women who fought there, there is a scene where the women attack Spanish supply convoy in the fog and they do it riding on skates which naturally afforded them high speed of movement.

As a Dutch guy, I'm just curious to hear everyone just butcher the pronounciation :-)

bonus points if they go for the Frisian pronunciation, "Alvestêdetocht".

According to Wikipedia, Elfstedentocht is pronounced [ɛlf'steːdə(n)tɔxt] and Alvestêdetocht [ɔlvəˈstɛːdətɔχt]. Elfstedentocht is close to how I'd pronounce it as a non-native German speaker, except I was pronouncing ‹st› as [ʃ] and ‹o› as [o] (my native dialect has the cot-caught merger, so I don't use ɔ). Alvestêdetocht isn't much different, except for the ‹A› as [ɔ] that I wasn't expecting.

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