PHOTO: Bildbyrån
He is one of the great Swedish Olympic heroes in history.
And the fact is that the legend is still racing.
Today we pay tribute to Ragnar Skanåker on his 90th birthday.
There are few Swedish athletes who can boast of having competed in seven consecutive Summer Olympics. But our Swedish Olympic hero has that privilege Ragnar Skanåker after a very successful career in pistol shooting.
Skanåker’s career
He made his Olympic debut as early as 1972 during the Summer Olympics in Munich and had the very best start to his career. At the age of 38, he won Olympic gold in free pistol directly in his Olympic debut.
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Skanåker would follow that up with Olympic silver in Los Angeles in 1984, another Olympic silver in Seoul in 1988 and then Olympic bronze in Barcelona in 1992. The seventh and very last participation in the Olympic Games then came in Atlanta in 1996.
Turning 90 years old
The shooting legend has also won four WC gold medals with the gun. Today he turns 90 years old and reveals that he actually still competes.
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Now he explains the secret to being able to compete at such an advanced age.
– Yes, you change the lenses in your eyes and get plastic lenses, they last as long as you like. They don’t rust. And I eat a deciliter of blueberries every day, I got them as a recommendation from an ophthalmologist at Akademiska in Uppsala, he says in an interview with Radiosporten.
– She told me five years ago to do it if I want to keep my sight for another fifteen years, she thought it was enough to keep my sight. And I try to do that.
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Ragnar Skanåker also gives his recipe for living a long and healthy life.
– You owe it to yourself to try to have a pleasant life, you must be happy and look at things positively. Since then, I’ve had a lot of help from pistol shooting, it’s like yoga and you train your brain to focus, says the Swedish Olympic hero in the interview.
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