PHOTO: Bildbyrån
With the best season of his career under his belt, a winter now awaits with the WC as the big goal.
Then cross-country star Linn Svahn says:
– The WC is just a crap competition.
Linn Svahns evaluation of the WC has to do with the fact that the question of her thoughts on the championship in Trondheim next year is put to her when the competition season is barely two months away.
– Championship is always the biggest, the thing that you value the most. Obviously I’m looking forward to it. But it’s quite nice to be distanced from it as long as you can. When I’m out training, it’s not something I really think about, says the 24-year-old during the national team’s camp at high altitude in Italy.
Svahn’s play
Here and now, the focus is mostly on what makes her stronger.
– I am quite separated from the training self and the competition self. When you stand here and have some distance to the competition season, you think that the WC is not the whole world. It’s special with championships, it’s big. But it’s not that big either, the WC is just a crap competition, she says and laughs.
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Last season, Svahn won six individual World Cup races – five in the sprint and one victory in the 15 kilometer classic – and had another seven podium finishes. The Swede won the sprint cup and challenged Jessie DigginsUSA, for the overall victory, but she had to give up in the finale in Falun.
– It was my best season ever. I don’t think I’ve ever had as much fun as I did last season. It was a really good year. It’s fun that it all fits together – that you have a good time and things are going well. Then sports are fine.
It was also when Svahn came back to the national team after she and together with Frida Karlsson and Maja Dahlqvist ran one season under own management.
– I think that last season was the best ever in the confederation. We made a clear plan in the spring, the whole team together. This is what we want to develop and this is how we want to do it. Then we ran that line throughout the year and we got development. The participation was great.
“I don’t care”
When Svahn won the sprint in the Tour de Ski opener the day before New Year’s Eve last year, it was her first victory in a World Cup race in over 1,000 days.
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She had close to two years of injury problems in a shoulder after a roll during a World Cup race in Ulricehamn in early 2021.
– It was only last year that I was able to start training based on what I want to train, not just what I can train. And then I had an immediate effect.
So how good can you be this winter?
– No idea! It’s always hard to say now how things might go this winter. Right here and now I don’t care, says Linn Svahn.
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Facts: Linn Svahn
Born: 9 December 1999 (age 24).
Club: Östersund SK.
Debut in the World Cup: March 16, 2019.
Main merits: 2019–2020 and 2023–24 Sprint Cup winners, 2023–24 World Cup runners-up overall, have won 15 individual World Cup races and have a further eight podium finishes.
Highlights this winter:
• November 22–24: Swedish premiere, Bruksvallarna.
• November 29–December 1: World Cup premiere in Ruka, Finland.
• December 28-January 5: Tour de Ski in Toblach and Val di Fiemme, Italy.
• February 14–16: World Cup in Falun, Sweden.
• February 26–March 9: WC in Trondheim, Norway.
• March 15–16: World Cup in Holmenkollen, Norway.
• March 21–23: World Cup final in Lahti, Finland.
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