Holmenkollen Ski Festival

What it is

Holmenkollen Ski Festival is an annual Nordic skiing event at Holmenkollen, in Oslo, Norway. Its full official title is Holmenkollen FIS World Cup Nordic, and in Norwegian it is called Holmenkollen skifestival or Holmenkollrennene. The programme covers cross-country skiing, ski jumping, Nordic combined and biathlon, for both men and women. Skiforeningen, a Norwegian skiing body, arranges the festival. Racing takes place at the Holmenkollen National Arena, which includes the jumping hills Holmenkollbakken and Midtstubakken. The event normally runs over several days in March.

Origins and history

The first festival was arranged in 1892, and it has returned almost every year since. Two gaps stand out: nothing was held in 1898, and the Second World War stopped the event between 1941 and 1945. Over the decades Holmenkollen also became a regular home for larger championships. It was the site of world championships in 1930, 1966 and 1982, and again in 2011, when the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships took the place of the usual festival. When the Winter Olympics came to Oslo in 1952, the Nordic skiing events were staged here, and they served as that year's world championships as well.

The programme over time

Events have come and gone from the start. Men's Nordic combined has the longest run, beginning in 1892, while the men's 50 km cross-country race dates from 1898. Ski jumping for men was added in 1933 and men's biathlon in 1984. Women's competition arrived later: the 30 km cross-country race and the women's biathlon both began in 1988, and women's ski jumping in 2000. Several races have been dropped, among them the men's 18 km and 15 km, and three women's distances, the 5 km, 10 km and 20 km. A Nordic combined sprint was introduced in 1997, and a 10 km event has been run since 2010.

Interruptions and championships

Holmenkollen has not always been free. In 2009 the site was being renovated, so that season's competitions shifted elsewhere in Norway: Trondheim was given the cross-country races and the biathlon, and Vikersund the jumping and the combined events. Two years later the world championships filled the calendar, and no separate festival took place. The arena has also been the setting for biathlon world championships, which were held there in 1986, 1990, 1999, 2000 and 2002, and once more in 2016.

The festival today

The festival is still going. Each March skiers come to the arena above Oslo for cross-country, jumping, combined and biathlon, and Skiforeningen still arranges the programme. Lists of past winners reach back to the first years, and the meeting has been held almost without a break. Other annual skiing gatherings, such as the Lahti Ski Games and the Swedish Ski Games, appear alongside it in the event's records. Both men's and women's biathlon remain part of the card, having been run since the 1980s.

How Holmenkollen Ski Festival is kept

Skiers from Norway and other countries compete across several March days at the Holmenkollen arena, with events spread over cross-country skiing, ski jumping, Nordic combined and biathlon. Men's and women's competitions are held separately. Nordic combined is the oldest item still on the programme, and the men's 50 km cross-country race has a long history too. Some events have been retired over the years and new formats have been added, so the card is not the same as it once was.

When and where

It falls in March. The festival has been annual from 1892, with only two interruptions: no event in 1898, and none from 1941 to 1945 during the Second World War. In 2011 the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships were held instead of a separate festival.

It belongs to Oslo, Norway, where the events use the Holmenkollen National Arena and its two jumping hills, Holmenkollbakken and Midtstubakken. The festival is strongest there, and only once did it move: in 2009, with the site under renovation, races took place in Trondheim and Vikersund.

What Holmenkollen Ski Festival means

The same hillside above Oslo has hosted the festival for more than a century, and only war and a single missing year have broken the sequence. That continuity matters to the skiers who take part and to Skiforeningen, which arranges the programme. Each March the names of winners are added to lists that stretch back to the 1890s, so the event carries the memory of Nordic skiing from its early days to the present.

Questions people ask about Holmenkollen Ski Festival

See also

HyggeA Danish word for unhurried time at home with others, kept with candles and cookingRapper swordA fast-paced five-person sword dance from the coalfields of North East England, kept alive by teams worldwide.BuekorpsYouth marching groups of Bergen's neighbourhoods, with drums, banners and a May paradeJulebukkingA Scandinavian Christmas custom where masked visitors go door to door for songs and treats.

Good reading and sources

• Holmenkollen Ski Festival on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data

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