PHOTO: Bildbyrån + TT Nyhetsbyrån
The sadness was great when the Åsarna ski center burned down recently.
But now an unexpected find has been made in the ashes after the fire.
– It is very positive. Impressive, says skiing icon Thomas Wassberg to SportExpressen.
It was the night of March 8 that the Åsarna ski center was in flames and completely destroyed by the fire. The ski icon Thomas Wassberg who had long been active within Åsarna IK was one of many who mourned the loss of a piece of Swedish sports history.
The finds in the ashes
Everyone feared the worst and that all prizes and memorabilia were destroyed by the fire. But then the cousins took over Lisa Svensson and Emil Svenssonwho both work at the ski resort, the decision to start looking among the ashes and the burnt rubble.
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After a couple of hours they managed to make the first find and several hours later the cousins had found many more prizes.
– We were at it for six, seven hours in total. In the beginning it was mostly ash, soot and old roof debris. But we felt that some medals might be salvageable and in the end the first one appeared, says Lisa to SportExpressen.
– We didn’t really have very high hopes, so it feels absolutely amazing that we were able to find so many.
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Wassberg’s words
The saved prizes belonged to great skaters from Åsarna IK such as the previously mentioned Wassberg and also Torgny Mogren, Jan Ottosson and many more. In the end, they managed to find 60-70 medals and various prizes after the terrible fire.
– Oh, are there that many? That is very positive. Incredibly well done by them, putting that time and effort into it. Impressive. It’s clear… The medals are not the whole history of skiing, there is much else that is gone, but it is what it is, says Thomas Wassberg to the evening newspaper after the find.
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But precisely the Olympic and World Cup medals that were kept in the facility’s museum were copies that could not withstand the fire at all. The hope now is that the found prizes will be exhibited again and continue to tell the story of Åsarna IK.
– If you can put them on display, it will be like an extra memory, that they survived the fire. There will be further history. Extra fun if the building is rebuilt, that there is actually something left from the old one, says Torgny Mogren to the newspaper.
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