PHOTO: Bildbyrån
He is a big icon in sports Sweden.
Gunde Svan was also a perfectionist down to the tips of his fingers.
It is revealed above all by the incredible amount of food he ate during his elite career.
When you talk about the Swedish skiing legend, there is a lot to choose from. But one name that stands out extra is the unforgettable and highly opinionated one Gunde Swan.
Gunde’s greatness
Gunde always went his own way both in terms of training and diet. A perfectionist down to the tips of his fingers, he became known for his record-breaking showers and extremely low resting heart rates.
But then he was also a hell of a skier. In cross-country skiing, he goes down in history as one of the absolute best and has a trophy collection that makes many freeze.
Loved porridge
Svan participated in eight Olympic races and won medals in six of them, four of which were gold medals. In addition, he won seven World Cup golds and the overall World Cup five times and salvaged 16 Championship golds on home soil.
But besides quick showers and resting pulses, there is another detail that really personifies Gunde and that is the diet. It is already known worldwide that the skiing icon loved to eat oatmeal and he liked to start each day with a big bowl of porridge.
So much food
But the truth is that it required so much more food for Gunde Svan to cope with the big elite effort. He himself has revealed after his career that he ate as much as over 8,000 calories per day at the peak of his athletic career.
The incredible figure corresponds to the nutritional intake of four full-grown men in a day. He also had strict requirements that it should be good and energy-rich food, often Gunde could bring his own ready-made food to competitions in order to be able to have full control over what he ingested.
Gunde Svan is truly one of our very greatest skiers ever. Share the article to pay tribute to the legend!
READ MORE: When a soon-to-be 60-year-old Gunde Svan showed what Swedish forehead bone looks like – by making sloppy Northug jam