Photo: Bildbyrån
After this summer’s double Olympic gold, Sarah Sjöström is now taking a short break from swimming and focusing on other things. Marriage, house building and another sport for example.
“The journey is more important than the destination regardless of the end result,” she writes on Instagram.
Already as a 14-year-old won Sarah Sjostrom his first European Championship gold in the 100 meter butterfly in the Dutch Eindhoven. In the semi-final, she had swum in 58.38 seconds, which was then a Swedish record for the distance. Since then, the records and medals have continued to pour in at a furious pace. She has three gold, two silver and one bronze from a total of four Olympics. Then she has 20 WC gold (14 in long track, 6 in short track) and 29 EC gold (17 in long track, 12 in short track) as well.
After 15 years at the very top of the world, you understand that it can be a little more difficult to motivate yourself every day. In order to break her usual patterns and be able to take new (swimming) steps in the fall, Sarah has now chosen a slightly different path forward after her Olympic success in Paris.
Sarah Sjöström tests new training
You can be calm. She has by no means ended her swimming career, just chosen to add a completely different type of training to broaden her horizons and feel inspiration and training joy in a place other than the pool. It may surprise some that as an elite athlete you don’t run one hundred percent focused on your own sport, but Sarah has always gone her own way and felt good about incorporating other types of movement and training into her schedule in order to ultimately optimize her swimming.
Now she has published an Instagram post where she can be seen climbing in an indoor hall. It’s called bouldering and involves climbing up walls that are only about 3-4 meters high, without any rope.
“The journey is more important than the goal regardless of the end result, it can be as exciting/fun as it is annoying/tough to figure out how to get up (or forward) every time. Each attempt makes you stronger and brings you closer to the goal,” she writes on the social media platform.
“Of course you don’t need to have a specific goal. Do what you think is fun and it will be great. But if you have a tough challenge or goal ahead of you, you now have a great tip,” writes Sjöström.
Getting married in a few weeks
It is not the first time that Sarah Sjöström climbs/boulders. She’s actually been doing it off and on for a couple of years now. If you look through her Instagram feed, you will find one and another picture from a climbing hall.
– I do it just for fun. It is very similar to the muscles that we need to use when we swim. I think it has helped me in the water when I was climbing, she said in a Youtube clip with Betsson back in 2017.
READ MORE: Sarah Sjöström’s wonderful message about the future makes the whole of Sweden rejoice – now confirms what everyone suspected: “I have never been like…”
Maybe she now also uses the climbing as a way to get away a little from the stressful reality that is right now? She is going to marry her beloved Johan de Jong Skierus in just two weeks. Much of the waking time is surely spent planning the wedding so that every detail is absolutely perfect.
“I will love and annoy you forever, no matter what. Can’t wait until I get to be your wife in less than two weeks,” she writes on Instagram.
How nice that you dare and want to try something new, Sarah. Hopefully it will help you in the future with swimming.
What a star you are! A huge performance at the Paris Olympics – you really are the queen of free swimming. Hey hey!
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