STOCKHOLM - Three skiers died during the 81st annual Swedish ski marathon Vasaloppet, a classic 90-kilometer ski race in central Sweden, local hospital sources said on Monday.
"One (Swedish) man, who was about 62 year old, died on the bus approximately four hours before the race, while two other men died during the race," chief physician at the local Mora hospital Ulf Haalmarker told AFP.
"One Norwegian man in his 30s, who was healthy and who had skied a lot in the past, died after skiing between 69 and 70 kilometers (about 43 miles), and a Swedish man, who was around 70 years old, died after skiing 47 kilometers (29 miles)," he said, adding that he did not know what the men had died from.
Of the approximately 400,000 people who have participated in the Vasaloppet over the past 81 years, nine people, not counting the man who died on the bus ahead of Sunday's race, have died, according to Haalmarker.
Some 13,000 people had showed up at the starting line for Sunday's Vasaloppet, which commemorates King Gustav Eriksson Vasa's escape from Danish invaders nearly five centuries ago, and about 500 of them gave up before completing the race.
"That means that 3.8 percent of the skiers gave up. Normally it's between three and 15 percent, so I can't see that difficult conditions could explain the deaths," Haalmarker said, adding that doctors had been present at every rest station, but that they had not been able to save the men's lives.
The men's race was won by Swedish Oskar Svaerd, who finished in three hours, 51 minutes and 47 seconds, while Swedish Sofia Lind won the women's race in four hours, 24 minutes and nine seconds.
03/07/2005 16:36 GMT