Editing Cross-country skiing (section)

===Sport===
[[File:Michal Malak at Tour de Ski retouched.jpg|Michal Malák skate-skis at a qualifier for the [[Tour de Ski]], 2007.|thumb|right]]
{{main article|Cross-country skiing (sport)}}
Norwegian skiing regiments organized military skiing contests in the 18th century, divided in four classes: shooting at a target while skiing at "top speed", downhill racing among trees, downhill racing on large slopes without falling, and "long racing" on "flat ground".<ref name=Bergsland/> An early record of a public ski competition occurred in [[Tromsø (city)|Tromsø]], 1843. In Norwegian, {{lang|no|langrenn}} refers to "competitive skiing where the goal is to complete a specific distance in groomed tracks in the shortest possible time". In Norway, ''ski touring competitions'' ({{langx|no|turrenn}}) are long-distance cross-country competitions open to the public, competition is usually within age intervals.<ref name=Idrettsleksikon/>

A new technique, [[skate skiing]], was experimented with early in the 20th Century, but was not widely adopted until the 1980s. [[Johan Grøttumsbråten]] used the skating technique at the [[FIS Nordic World Ski Championships 1931|1931 World Championship]] in Oberhof, one of the earliest recorded use of skating in competitive cross-country skiing.<ref name="Olav 1993">{{cite book |last= Bø |first= Olav |title= Skiing throughout history |others= W. Edson Richmond (trans.) |location= Oslo |publisher= Samlaget |year= 1993}}</ref> This technique was later used in ski orienteering in the 1960s on roads and other firm surfaces. It became widespread during the 1980s after the success of [[Bill Koch (skier)|Bill Koch]] ([[United States]]) in [[FIS Nordic World Ski Championships 1982|1982 Cross-country Skiing Championships]] drew more attention to the skating style. Norwegian skier [[Ove Aunli]] started using the technique in 1984, when he found it to be much faster than classic style.<ref>{{cite web | last = Bengtsson | first = Bengt Erik | title = Cross-country skating: How it started | work = Skiing History Magazine | publisher = International Skiing History Association | url = https://skiinghistory.org/history/cross-country-skating-how-it-started | access-date = 2014-10-20 | archive-date = 23 October 2014 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20141023051103/https://skiinghistory.org/history/cross-country-skating-how-it-started | url-status = live }}</ref> Finnish skier, [[Pauli Siitonen]], developed a one-sided variant of the style in the 1970s, leaving one ski in the track while skating to the side with the other one during endurance events;<ref name=marathonskate>{{Citation
 | last1 = Field
 | first1 = Patrick
 | last2 = Corradini
 | first2 = Angelo
 | title = Wordloppet Anniversary Book—30 years of skiing around the world (Skating, Siitonen and Koch)
 | work = Anniversary Book
 | publisher = World Loppet Ski Foundation
 | editor-last = Paal
 | editor-first = Epp
 | editor-last2 = Corradini
 | editor-first2 = Angelo
 | date = 2007
 | url = http://www.worldloppet.com/anniversary_book.php
 | access-date = 2015-01-04
 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150703001512/http://www.worldloppet.com/anniversary_book.php
 | archive-date = 3 July 2015
 | url-status = dead
 }}</ref> this became known as the "marathon skate".<ref name="skixc1">{{cite web| title = Marathon Skate
 | work = Cross Country Ski Tips and Information
 | publisher = XCSki.com
 | date = 2010
 | url = http://www.skixc.com/skate-marathon.html
 | access-date = 2015-06-29
 | archive-date = 4 January 2015
 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150104200809/http://www.skixc.com/skate-marathon.html
 | url-status = live
 }}</ref>