61–70 of 129 posts
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 remember these clips, was funny :)
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> 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.
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> 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 hou…
"The waterschappen don't stop their pumps out of hospitality or something," So do they get compensation?
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 catc…
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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'…
You forgot to mention we pay him a lot of money each year.
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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...
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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...
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.
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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.
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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 st…
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.
"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.
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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 even…
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.
The world cup is great for sitting together and drinking beer. But we can do that without winning.