By Teemu Virtanen
On tomorrow’s Orsa2Levi podcast, you will have a chance meet Oskar Svärd up close and personal. This former legend of long distance skiing won Marcialonga, Vasaloppet three-times and was in the top 10 so many times that it’s hard to count (14 to be exact). Oskar finished active racing in 2016, but he is still in shape. This winter, he managed to ski Vasalöppet’s Öppet Spår a way under four hours.
He is now the director of a new team called Team Eksjöhus, and he takes his job seriously and is ready to share his knowledge and expertise to all members of the team. The group is still quite small, and its success relies on the following athletes: Morten Eide Pedersen, Ari Luusua, Axel Jutterström, Linn Sömskar, Hedda Bångman and Karolina Hedenström. Oskar’s day job is in the Swedish military, and he acknowledges that being an army man brings certain qualities and methods to his way of running things.
“I’m quite clear about the way I want to work with my team. I think our athletes understand and agree with this. We need to do this together and learn from each other. We have a five-year plan, which means that we’re not in hurry to be the best. In three years, we should be up there fighting against the best of the bunch,” Oskar says firmly.
The Pro Team had their first training camp last month, and according to Oskar everything went well.
“We wanted this first camp to be one where we can get to know each other. It was also a good place to make our sponsor more familiar to our athletes. We trained well, but perhaps not as much as we are going to do at the camp in the fall where we have nothing else than training to think about,” Oskar describes their first training session on the podcast.
He also tells us that he has made himself available for every member of the team to be a personal coach if they so desire.
“Some of our skiers have chosen to have me as their trainer and some have their own personal ones. In those cases, my plan is to coordinate with them between our training camps. At the camps, I do the training program together with Morten Eide Pedersen, who is the team captain, and everyone follows that. Of course, if one is injured, she or he can choose an alternative program.”
Oskar hasn’t completely left competitive sports as he is a part of a successful adventure sport team aiming to do well at the upcoming World Championships. You will learn more about his goals, his new team, his life, what Vasaloppet victories really gave him and skiing in general on tomorrow’s podcast.
