Origins of Elfstedentocht

The Elfstedentocht, or Eleven Cities Tour, is a long-distance ice-skating race in the Dutch province of Friesland, covering about 200 kilometers along canals, rivers and lakes that link eleven historic towns. It can take place only when the ice is thick enough along the whole route, which means that in some decades it was not held at all. The first race, organized in the early twentieth century by a Frisian skating association, was won by Minne Hoekstra, and the tour quickly became a national passion in the Netherlands. The last edition was in 1997, and every winter, when a hard frost comes, the country waits to see whether the race will be called. Climate change makes a future race less likely.

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