The International Rollerski Series suffered its first canceled race in history today due to a mix up of dates and lack of a suitable course.

In an effort to increase the internationality of the series and to reduce the workload of the IRS Imperial Senate, the powers that be delegated this race to a certain ski club from French speaking Canada which shall remain nameless.

The race had been planned for Saturday, August 7. It was not until today, August 7, that the organizers realized that it was not a Saturday (at least not in english speaking parts of the world). Samedi-Tuesday? Mardi-Saturday? No one knew for sure. A last minute panic ensued. Hold the race on August 7 or on Saturday? The organizers held three hours of meetings, without regard for the racers who were waiting in line outside the offices the whole time, hoping to register. Eventually, because it was too late to try to pull off a race up to the usual IRS standards today, a decision was made to hold the race on Saturday.

With this resolved, another problem presented itself. The road on which the race was too be held is scheduled to be chip-sealed on Friday, following in the footsteps of virtually all other decent road in Utah. Chip-sealing renders the pavement unskiable for years to come, so the race could not be held there. It was pointed out that a beautiful course specifically designed for rollerskiers was only minutes away at Soldier Hollow, but the French Canadian ski club race organizers apparently have a long-standing feud with the Soldier Hollow construction workers (over the fact that the workers built 30 wax rooms at the French Canadians' home course and only gave them one key) and therefore refused to ask for their help.

Thus the race had to be canceled and all the racers left their army barrack accommodations behind and went home fuming. Did I mention it was -30 F this morning?