Highs and lows of 2024

As we becamy a family of 4 in the end of May, new challenges and experiences as an elite athlete has presented themselves. My WOC preperations were good, and I am really proud of my performance at the WOC sprint, even though it was tough to miss out on the medals with just 2 seconds. But that is elite sports for you: small margins and a lot of strong runners that want to claim the medals!

After WOC I struggled with my recovery, and I had a really tough period where nothing worked well and I was constantly on the verge of getting a cold. O-ringen was a week I would rather forget, but in the beginning of August I felt normal again and was really excited for the rest of the season. On the Swedish Ultra Long Champs in Grövelsjön (definitely my orienteering experience of the year!) I felt super strong, and in a great place ahead of the European Champs in Mór, Hungary, the coming weekend. I continued to feel good all the way up to the races, and the qualification went all according to plan. The Middle distance did not, however. I don’t know if it was the heat, bad preperations, an infection on it’s way, or maybe a combination of all three, but nothing worked. I felt really slow and heavy, and got stressed and had a disastrous technical performance. I tried to pull myself together for the Long distance, but that felt even worse. In the end I could barely walk on a road, and that was my sign to abort and find my way back to the finish. On the rest day I got a slight fever, and I decided that it was time to call quits on the EOC project, skip the relay, and go back home to recover. It took a long time to feel normal physically again, ad it was not until the Swedish League Final weekend in the middle of September that I felt good again (even though I fought my way to good Swedish champs results, despite not feeling good, at the turn of the month August/September), and I was very happy to be able to win the chasing start after a fun and tough battle with Max Peter Bejmer.

The World Cup Final weekend north of Kuopio, Finland, was also quite good. Not really good enough performances neither technically nor physically at the individual races, but decent results with a 6th and a 7th place. Dissappointed to find myself in the Swedish 2nd team for the relay, but as always the competition for the spots in the Swedish team is fierce, and the 2nd team might as well have been the first, and we showed what we are capably of by ending the season on top, winning the relay and thus securing the Swedish overall victory in the Team World Cup. A great way to end the season!

I have started to settle into my winter training now, after having a tough first couple of weeks, and I am as motivated as ever to continue to train hard and try to develop ahead of the next season!