Facts: Ebba Årsjö
Born: January 12, 2001 (age 21).
Club: Vemdalens IF Alpina.
Lives: In Norrköping and Vemdalen.
Main achievements: Two golds and one bronze in the Paralympics, two World Cup golds, eleven World Cup victories and eleven European Cup victories. Recipient of the Victoria Award, as the first para athlete ever.
Class: Årsjö competes in the LW4 class, where the skiers have a disability in one leg or are missing a leg below the knee and she rides on two skis.
Other: Was a promising downhill skier for a long time, but the muscle weakness in her right leg became more and more noticeable and in 2019 she switched to being a para athlete.
It has almost been nine months since Ebba Årsjö won two golds and a bronze in the Paralympics. A few months later, she chose to post a picture of her weak leg on her Instagram account.
From being relatively unknown, the 21-year-old suddenly became one of the most noticed athletes in Sweden.
She admits that it has increased the pressure on her ahead of the new season.
— But I think it’s fun and that’s how it should be. You get tagged by it. And it’s not only negative with pressure, it’s fun and I have a lot of experience with me, says Ebba Årsjö.
The alpine para star has already won the noblest denomination in both the Paralympics and the WC. But still looms a victory in the overall World Cup.
— It’s a huge goal I have and something I value very highly. It’s more than being the best just for one day, it applies for a whole season, which I’m betting on, says Årsjö, who announced a few weeks ago that she’s putting down her investment in steeplechase in the coming season.
Ebba Årsjö and Prince Daniel at the celebration of Crown Princess Victoria’s birthday at the Borgholm castle ruins on Öland. Stock image. Snuvaded at the home WC
After the turn of the year, the WC in Spain is also waiting. From the beginning, the championship was supposed to be held in Åre and Östersund, but the Swedish Parasport Federation chose to cancel it after the International Paralympic Committee handed over responsibility for the event to the International Skiing and Snowboarding Federation (FIS).
Instead, it will be in the Spanish Espot, 18–29 January, that Årsjö will be able to chase new WC medals.
– It’s just boring for us and I really would have liked to have the whole family and a lot of friends with me, who have never been able to be there before. In addition, being able to stay at home and eat mother’s food and then go and compete, it’s not often you get to do that, she says and continues:
— I hope and believe that that chance will appear again.
Ebba Årsjö took the Paralympic gold in slalom in Beijing last season.”A few years left in me”
She doesn’t know what the future looks like. When the pain appears in the muscle-weak right leg as soon as she trains or competes, which was the basis for the decision to stop downhill running, Ebba Årsjö chooses not to look too far ahead.
— It is very difficult to know. But the only thing I know is that it won’t be long, she says about her career.
— At the same time, the scales are weighed down by all the good things that I get from the skis right now. I have a few years left in me.
Ebba Årsjö started the competition season by winning a European Cup competition in Austria the other week. Today the World Cup starts in St Moritz with slalom – one of Årsjö’s gold disciplines from the Paralympics in Beijing.