PHOTO: Bildbyrån
Calle Halfvarsson failed to win any medals during the winter WC.
Something that annoyed the cross-country skier for a long time.
– I just drove around and was mad at myself, says Halfvarsson to SVT.
He is a big name in Swedish skiing and sports. He has three WC medals (two silver, one bronze) from the 4 x 10 kilometer relays in 2013, 2015 and 2017. But Calle Halfvarsson has yet to win either an individual WC medal or a WC gold.
The 34-year-old also failed to do that during the WC in Planica in the spring of 2023. Halfvarsson came sixth in the skiathlon and the relay, fifth in the sprint and the sprint relay, and fourth in the five mile – that is, one place away from your first individual WC medal. Despite good results and a good form, it was a medalless championship.
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Something that was very difficult for him.
– It was tough to go home from the WC without a medal when I was so close in several races. Then I had a difficult period after the WC when it was a bit difficult to train, with a lot of thoughts. I was in good shape at the WC but didn’t get the most out of it. I rode thinking a lot “why did I do this the last 500 meters”. There was a lot of thought, says Halfvarsson to SVT.
“Be that stupid?”
But the cross-country star fought back.
– I just had to decide. I thought to myself that “now you just have to toughen up, you can’t go around thinking about this”. That classic thing that you can’t influence what has been, but you have to start looking forward. I think I’m usually pretty good at it. If there have been setbacks, I’m pretty good at getting up and moving on and fighting on. I can finally make it this time too. Although it was really hard for a while when I was home there. I was… There were heavy thoughts about those stretches at the WC.
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34 years old and a 14 year professional career. That Halfvarsson would want to retire after last season might not have been surprising.
– Those thoughts will come. But it wasn’t so much “now I’m quitting”. It was more these thoughts “why did I do that” and “why did I do this”. You leave and think “how could I be so stupid and do that”. Especially in both the sprint and the five-mile, because there were mistakes in both.
– Excuses, of course, you don’t want to keep doing that. But… Yeah, I just went around and was kind of mad at myself. Maybe not that I would quit, but it was tough to train, says Halfvarsson.
READ MORE: Petter Northug’s sneer at Calle Halfvarsson – after the Swede’s baby boom: “Standing up as a nanny”
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