A giant on the ski slope.
But outside the competitions, Ingemar Stenmark was not as forward.
Just check out this extremely classic interview – where Stenmark refuses to offer anything.
Big, bigger, Stenmark. When he went, Sweden stood still, and it was rarely that he disappointed the millions of viewers. Stenmark won competition after competition, and goes down in history as one of Sweden’s greatest of all time.
Short of words
Stenmark revolutionized alpine sports and made it his. During that unparalleled career, he managed to set a new, almost impossible, record for the number of victories in the World Cup, and he also did well in the few major championships he competed in.
Stenmark is the great idol of all skiers, and everyone after him has the Swede to thank for what he did for the sport. But as dominant as he was in the competition itself, he was just as prudent and humble on the sidelines. Stenmark has always let the times on the slopes speak for themselves, and he has never been one to offer flashy quotes. That’s how he always was, and he was always true to himself.
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The legendary interview
But it also led to some funny moments. The journalists always flocked around Ingemar, but it was not always easy to get him to say something that the journalists actually wanted. It could be a real challenge, and the legendary sports journalist Åke Strömmer got to experience it firsthand during a classic interview with Stenmark.
It was early in Stenmark’s career, before he had perhaps received any proper media training, that Strömmer spoke with Stenmark between two seasons. Strömmer wants to know more about what Stenmark thinks about it, and a bit about his background, but Stenmark is not overly eager to share…
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