Eleven Towns Tour - Dutch Skating Marathon - May Be Permanently Over; Last Held 1997 - Reuters

[hatrack]

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The Eleven Towns Tour, a marathon skating race along the frozen canals of the Netherlands last held a decade ago, may be put in cold storage if Dutch meteorologists' forecasts of global warming are correct.

The Dutch meteorological institute KNMI said 2006 was the warmest year since its records began 300 years ago, with an average temperature of 11.2 degrees Celsius. If the warming trend continues, the race held on Jan. 4, 1997, might have been the last.

The event takes place when the ice is at least 15 cm (5.9 inches) thick along the whole course, a condition that has been met 15 times in the past 100 years.

"Average temperatures are rising. In the last 10 years I have only been able to skate here one day. Otherwise there has been absolutely no ice," Henk Kroes, chairman of the race's organising committee, told NOS television as he gazed at an ice-free canal. The "Elfstedentocht", considered one of ice skating's most gruelling challenges, attracts thousands of participants who try to cover almost 200 km (124 miles) on frozen canals through 11 towns in the province of Friesland, much of it in the dark.

EDIT

http://in.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=entertainmentNews&storyID=2007-01-04T200715Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_India-282300-1.xml&archived=False

[Botany]

1. Wonder how Exxon is going to explain this?