Frida Karlsson trains with the German cross-country team.
Then the stars hope to learn a thing or two about Swedish.
– We learn a lot from her, but maybe we can also teach her some fencing technique, says German Olympic gold hero Victoria Carl.
It hasn’t exactly been a spring in the dark for Frida Karlsson. Shortly after the season ended, the shocking news came that she, just like Maja Dahlqvist and Linn Svahn, is choosing to leave the national team’s training group for the coming season.
Training with the rivals
It’s a trend that’s popping up here and there in the skiing world, regardless of country, right now. But for Sweden, it is of course remarkable that three of the biggest stars are now making a bet entirely on their own.
For Frida Karlsson, it means more time with her personal trainer Per Nilsson. He is also the women’s manager for the German national cross-country team, which means that Karlsson trains a lot with the German national team.
A strange arrangement it may seem.
– I have a good dialogue with Anders Byström (Swedish national team manager). We have shared the training programs in Torsby so that we do not clash with the same session in the tunnel, Nilsson tells TT.
“She can learn from us”
But there are no dozens of skaters that Karlsson now trains with and against. Katharina Hennig and Victoria Carl were hugely successful during the Winter Olympics, when they won gold in the team sprint, and were part of the team that took silver in the relay. And Hennig believes that Karlsson has something to learn from the Germans.
– We have a lot to learn from Frida and she can learn from us. Especially in technology. I hope we will have the opportunity to talk about training together in the future. She is nice and smiles a lot, says Katharina Hennig
Victoria Carl believes that Karlsson above all has some concerns with his strike.
– She stabs short and often, but not so hard. I take fewer strokes but have more power in each stroke. I hope to be able to talk to her more about this, says Carl.
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