State budget crisis reroutes skiers

BROWN COUNTY - The Stump Farm Open is a fundraiser for the Ashwaubenon Nordic Ski Team.

"It's normally a very low-key local race for people getting a tune-up for the Birkebeiner," said race director Philip Nelson.

The Birkie is the largest cross country ski marathon in North America. It's next weekend in Hayward, and some of the world's best cross country skiers will be there. A handful of them were here in Brown County this weekend.

"We sometimes cancel races because of lack of snow or because of low temperature, but never because of a demonstration," said Peter Skinstad, a member of the Jr. National Norwegian ski team.

You see many of these racers were supposed to ski at the Madison Winter Festival...

"It's an event where the snow is trucked into the square and the sprint ski race goes around the capitol building," said president of Central Cross Country Skiing, Oyvind Solving. "This has been going on for years, a large event with about 50,000 spectators."

But, due to the number of protesters surrounding the state capitol, the race was canceled.

"We saw all the people where we were supposed to ski and there were people all over, so we kind of put one and one together," said Skinstad.

"The police pulled the permit for the Winter Festival," added Solving.

So, instead of the Stump Farm being a quiet race through the idyllic Brown County Reforestation woods, it become a who's who of World Cup international racers.

"The irony is unbelievable here. People have feelings on both sides of this debate, but the fact that it turned out this way for us softens the situation quite a bit," said Nelson.

"This is pretty unique," said Solving. "I don't think any of the racers that came from Europe have seen something like this. I guess these are the far reaching consequences of the state budget negotiations that I don't think anyone anticipated."

For the skiers, the change of race locale didn't bother them. All they cared about was getting their competitive juices flowing. Nothing, not even a state budget protest, is about to come in their way.

"I hope to be an Olympic skier for Norway," said Skinstad. "The first possibility is 2014 in Russia."