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Comment by rollulus | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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.

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