The Marathon International de Bessans is the acid test for the nordic skiing at the beginning of the season in France. The following features make it a very distinctive race.

- The race takes place on the second Sunday of January. It is, in France, the first race over a long distance in the official calendar of the Fédération Française de Ski. This means a race which reveals the level of form gained thanks to the autumn training. There is no time left to cut your teeth over less demanding distances, it is from the very beginning of the game an important distance !!!

- The altitude, 1730 m, makes the Marathon of Bessans one of the highest races in Europe, which however assures optimum snow conditions. Thanks to the landscape and the atmosphere where it takes place this is a real nordic race.

- The mass start forces the skiers to strive for a better place from the very beginning to get out of the crowd. What a deligh !!!

- All the distances of the race (from the 42 km to the 2.5km) start together, but each one has then got its own track! This means more than 1100 competitors. Do you know what a popular race mean?

The different distances are :
5 distances in the skate technique: 42 km, 21 km, 10 km, 5 km, 2.5 km.

All these features make the Marathon of Bessans an important challenge that every one would like to have in their prize record along with the «Foulée Blanche» or the «Transjurassienne» .