The teams for the five-mile race are ready – Myhlback will not be flown in
The cross-country national team management has selected the following teams for the last five miles of this weekend:
Gentlemen, Saturday: Gustaf Berglund, Johan Häggström, Calle Halfvarsson, William Poromaa.
Ladies, Sunday: Frida Karlsson, Ebba Andersson, Emma Ribom, Jonna Sundling.
However, Friday morning’s press conference was mostly about those who weren’t selected.
Edvin Anger himself announced after the sprint relay that he probably wouldn’t run the five miles due to problems with his trachea, and that’s how it will be.
Then speculation began about whether anyone who had gone home would be called back. National team manager Anders Byström said they had spoken to Alvar Myhlback but the 19-year-old was in full preparation to defend his win at Vasaloppet.
Men’s coach Lars Ljung says that the main focus of the conversation was whether Myhlback would consider coming if the skaters on site in Italy became ill.
– Tomorrow we have to climb 1,900 meters in altitude and the majority of the climbs will be diagonal. It takes extreme preparation to be ready for a task like this, and Alvar has a slightly different orientation when skiing with the peg. So both he and I feel like we may not be fully prepared.
Moa Ilar had a brilliant season for women and is second in the overall World Cup. But she didn’t get the skating right during the Olympics, and women’s coach Thomson announces she’s going home just to strengthen herself for the World Cup continuation.
– And Linn Svahn was ill here at the beginning of the week, Monday-Tuesday. And it was decided that she would go home, she went home yesterday, says Thomson.
The man who changed jackets at breakneck speed
The last medals in figure skating will be awarded at the Olympic Games, giving choreographer and coach Benoit Richaud a chance to finally breathe.
The Frenchman Richaud is very good at his job and is therefore in high demand. This meant, among other things, that his Olympic packaging wasn’t like everyone else’s, requiring three suitcases to fit everything. In order to wear the “right jacket” as he sat on the sofa with his mentor on the ice waiting for the score, he had to pack 13 different Olympic jackets from different countries.
In total, he took part in the Olympic Games with 16 figure skaters, including the German couple Minerva Fabienne Hase and Nikita Volodin, the American Maxim Naumov, the Canadian Stephen Gogolev and the Japanese Sakamoto Kaori
Then, each race day, he brought a few jackets with him when he went to the arena, and sometimes he had to change quickly as his skaters left one by one. However, it worked every time.
– I know that there are trainers who prefer to wear their normal clothes. “But I think the Olympics are such a special occasion that I wanted to have the right clothes as a tribute to everyone,” said Benoit Richaud.
Now the Olympics are over for Benoit Richaud and he can wear black again. The color he usually always dresses in.
Madonna sent a supportive message
Figure skater Amber Glenn from the USA, who won Olympic gold in the team last week, was considered a possible medal candidate in the individual competition from the outset. However, the chance of a medal disappeared in the short program when she made a really costly mistake.
Then the artist Madonna decided that it was time to support the disappointed figure skater.
So she recorded a message and sent it to her.
“I just saw you go to my song ‘Like a Prayer’. I was so impressed. It was so strong, so beautiful and so brave.”
When Amber Glenn picked up the phone and saw the recorded sequence of Madonna paying tribute to her, she couldn’t believe her eyes.
– A few days ago she started following me on Instagram, but I thought it was probably her agent who liked what I posted and sent back. Not herself, Amber Glenn told the official information channel Olympic.
– When I received the news – and saw and heard it – I thought, this can’t be true. Now I hope I can do a good job in the toilet during the short program to match their incredible kindness.
Amber Glenn placed fifth in the women’s individual competition after moving from a 13th-place finish in the short program to a final fifth-place finish after the free program.
