Lahti’s Teemu Virtanen’s goal was to start his journey at the Helsinki Olympic Stadium on Tuesday, but due to the predicted strong wind, the start date has been postponed.
– Quite a storm is coming in from there, possibly already during Tuesday evening, 10-11 meters of wind per second. It’s not worth going there.
The creation of a new record requires that everything falls into place.
– The track must be hard, slippery and icy. No water, snow or sleet must come from the sky and it must not be too warm or too cold.
Now Teemu Virtanen’s goal is to ski 480 kilometers on the stadika’s circular track in a day. This requires 1,200 laps and a three-minute kilometer pace. With his record, he would end up in the Guinness Book of Records.
Time is being sought for the new date in connection with the ongoing Helsinki Ski Weeks event.
A large group of assistants is involved in the record attempt. Guinness requires two supervisors for skiing performance in four-hour shifts. In addition, there must be lap counters, ski greasers, assistant skiers to keep up the pace, and the entire race performance must be videotaped.
– I change skis about every hour and a half. Lubricated skis are always more slippery, of course it depends on the weather how much grease the track consumes.
Teemu Virtanen’s training volumes are huge, and the corona years have only increased them. For example, last year he trained in parallel skiing for 800 hours. 6,500 skiing kilometers were accumulated.