The quality and thickness of the ice in the south and the southeast of Friesland is at present inadequate to organise an Eleven Cities Tour.

The Eleven Cities Tour is an ice-skating marathon in the northern province of Friesland that passes through 11 towns and covers 200 kilometres.

The news was announced at a press conference of the Frisian Eleven Cities Association on Monday. The conference came after Sunday’s meeting of the association’s 22 regional heads who discussed the quality of the ice on the route of the marathon skating tour.

If the outdoor marathon does go ahead, it will send the nation into an “ice-skating fever” that can even surpass the European or world football championships frenzy.

The 20,000 participants skate on a completely natural maze of frozen ditches, dykes, polders and canals.
The last four tours were held in 1997, 1986, 1985 and 1963.

(gsh/imm)

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