2009-8-12
 

Journalists, media, Yuxi government officials and Nordic Ways representatives gathered on the 50^th floor at the Capital Club in Beijing for the Vatternrundan China Press Conference on Tuesday.

The first speaker was Mr. Niclas Hellqvist, General Manager of Nordic Ways. He presented some interesting facts about the classic Vatternrundan race in Sweden which is the model for Vatternrundan China. The Swedish Vatternrundan is 300km long and goes around Lake Vattern every June. Although there were only about 300 persons which took part in Vatternrundan the first time in 1966, the next year the number had already risen to above 1000 people.

This year the race had 19.300 participants from 32 countries and 4 continents.

Some fact about Vatternrundan:

1960’s – An engaged couple marries along the Vatternrundan track

1970’s – The same couple celebrates their 10th anniversary

1982 – A man bikes 1220km from his home to the start of Vatternrundan, takes part in the 300km race and bikes home again.

1984 – Every participant must wear helmet

1989 – The race reaches 15.000 participants

1991 – Women’s Vattern starts. The combined kilometers cycled by all participants from the first year and on now make 188 round trips to the moon. IOC appoints Vatternrundan to be one of the 8 biggest recreational races in the world
1990’s – The daughter of the couple that married back in the 60s does the same thing with her husband along the way of Vatternrundan.

Actually, Vatternrundan China is in its first year already the longest amateur bike race in China. Expectations are that there will be about 1000 local participants apart from about 350 other Chinese and foreign bikers taking part.

Next, Ms Yang Yang, Vice Mayor explained some of the aspects behind Vatternrundan China and Yuxi. She said she hoped that by organizing this bike race, more people could come to know of Fuxian Lake and its part in Chinas ecologic system, being the second deepest sweet water lake in China with class 1 natural water standard. Because of pollution caused by development, Fuxian Lakes water standard fell from 1st class to second class in recent years, but because of massive investments in water treatment facilities etc. the lake water became better again, and is now back to Class 1 water standard. Among other things, by organizing this event, Yuxi aims to keep the focus on protection of the lake at its precious water.

 Mr. Zhou Yanping from Yuxi Sports Bureau said that the stretch of Vatternrundan Chinas track was set about 2 months ago and is mainly on highway road close to the lake. The height level of the track is between 1600m and 1700m. He said Yuxi was well prepared for this event and that it has experience from organizing many events in and around Fuxian Lake such as dragon boat races, triathlon competitions and so on 

Vice Mayor of Yuxi, Ms. Yang Yang

Nordic Ways Event Director Andy Lai and Yuxi Sports Bureau Chief Zhou Yanping

From the left: Eric Ma, Nordic Ways Event and Production Manager, Zhou Yanping, Yuxi Sports Bureau Chief, Yang Yang, Yuxi City Vice Mayor, Leng Mingde, Chairman of Yuxi Political Committe, Niclas Hellqvist, Nordic Ways General Manager, Yang Lifen, Vice Secretary of Yuxi Governement, Andy Lai, Nordic Ways Event Director etc.