Ingemar Stenmark’s winning header took him far.
All the way to becoming perhaps Sweden’s greatest athlete of all time.
And it started as a child.
Ingemar Stenmark is not only perhaps Sweden’s greatest athlete of all time. Few athletes have ever had the same winning skull as Ingemar Stenmark, and often it actually didn’t matter that they even won. It could be something that was bothering him—that kept him from getting the perfect ride—and that was enough to make him irritated.
Won everything
You don’t win two Olympic golds, five World Cup golds and 86 World Cup victories by taking losses lightly, and that was perhaps what made Ingemar so incredible. The ability to always want to win, to always want to be better, and to always give. And it wasn’t something that came with age. When Stenmark has participated in competitions long after his career, including in the Master of Masters, the winner’s skull has still been there. And so it was also as a child.
That Stenmark was an extraordinary talent was clear early on, and even as a child he hated losing. Ingemar Stenmark understood early on that he was going to be a slalom skier, and that he was going to be the best, and it was just a matter of getting others to understand that too. But it didn’t take long before others understood how much Ingemar Stenmark actually hated losing.
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“Half killed himself”
According to TV profiler Steffo Törnquist, Stenmark once saw a schoolmate do something he thought was astonishing, and it didn’t take long before Stenmark himself had mastered the trick.
“One day his classmate Tony Olofsson became a hero by doing a backflip in gymnastics. Rapturous jubilation. Ingemar took note, went home and practiced stealthily, beat himself half to death, but eventually he too could and so he stood there in the schoolyard, quietly, and then he did his vault. Just like that. In the middle of the school yard. No pressure, no unnecessary talk, just a free volte, nothing else,” Törnquist wrote on the site alltomwhisky.
During the meaningless career, Ingemar Stenmark won an average of every third competition he competed in, and was on the podium in two out of three competitions. His record of 86 World Cup victories still stands today. However, the Swede has had to see himself defeated in the number of wins in a specific discipline, when Mikaela Shiffrin won her 47th giant slalom victory earlier this year.
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