Keeps his distance – even from the king
When Sebastian Samuelsson won Olympic gold in the relay in 2018, Carl XVI was. Gustaf was there too. After the finish, the Swedish biathlon star gave the surprised king a “royal hug,” he said in an interview with HBO:
– I kind of jumped on him and hugged him! And I understood afterwards that you don’t do it that way. He stood there stiff as a stick.
At this year’s Olympics, the king chose the cross-country sprint before Samuelsson’s distance race on Tuesday.
– He must have done some calculations as to where he thought the best chances of winning a medal were, says Samuelsson, who came seventh in the competition.
But on Wednesday His Majesty will be in Antholz for the women’s distance.
“As far as I know, the king and his family like to watch biathlon, so it’s fun that he comes and cheers us on,” says Swedish Olympic hopeful Hanna Öberg.
Öberg also met the king in the breakthrough and medals in Pyeongchang 2018.
– But maybe I wasn’t as forward-looking as “Sebbe,” she says and laughs.
Since the Olympics eight years ago, the world has experienced a pandemic. Extreme rules of conduct to avoid illness still apply to biathletes.
So there won’t be a hug this time either?
– No, you want to keep some distance! says Öberg.
More modern music causes problems for the figure skaters
At the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics, figure skaters were allowed to compete to music with lyrics for the first time as part of the Olympic Games. However, the real impact of change came four years later at the Beijing Olympics, when it became clear that a musical revolution was a fact.
Beautiful but often slow classical music – or perhaps large and bloated film music – was increasingly complemented by modern music with a faster tempo.
DN then wrote about the musical revolution, and most agree that this change is a positive thing and, not least, that it is loved by the audience.
But it has also created problems when it comes to rights.
Earlier, Spanish figure skater Tomas-Llorenc Guarino Sabate said he risked having to change his program because he was prevented at the last moment from using music from the children’s cartoon “The Minions.” As word spread, Universal finally relented and gave him permission.
Several figure skaters had the same problem. Something the website Inside the Games wrote about. Russian figure skater Petr Gumennik, who is competing in the Olympics as a neutral, has been skating all season to the music from the film “Perfume: The Story of a Murderer.”
But as the Olympics approached, he realized he lacked the necessary – often expensive – permissions to use the music.
Instead, he tried to get permission for the music from the movie Dune that he used last year, but that didn’t work either. However, at the last moment he received permission to use “Waltz 1805” by Edgar Hakobyan.
The Canadian ice dancing couple Marie-Jade Lauriault and Romain Le Gac were also forced to change their music due to a lack of rights.
The International Ice Skating and Figure Skating Federation is aware of the problem and has tried to help develop a system that minimizes the risk of rights violations. But more needs to be done.
– This is a very important question. “We don’t want the athletes to have to worry about the music,” chairman Jae Youl Kim told Inside the Games.
Now the medals are held in hand to celebrate
In the first days of competition in Milan Cortina, the medals were a big topic of conversation. It has been shown that they are not suitable for exuberant celebrations. Something that Ebba Andersson, among others, experienced when her silver medal came off the pendant.
Another number of medalists have experienced the same thing.
On Tuesday, Luca Casassa, the organization’s press director for the 2026 Olympics, announced that a solution had been found and that those whose medals were broken would have them replaced.
Must get a tattoo after receiving a medal
Before the Olympic Games, Swiss ski jumper Gregor Deschwanden bet with Blick magazine that if he won a medal he would get a tattoo.
When he won bronze on Monday evening, he was immediately asked if he wanted to honor the bet. That seems to be the case.
– I need to find a creative artist who can do this for me, I don’t have the creative mind. “I don’t know where on the body it will end up yet, but I’m happy to fulfill the bet because it means I won a medal,” Deschwanden said at the press conference after the final.
He is not the only Olympic athlete who bet with the Blick newspaper before the championship. For example, the ski racer Franjo Von Allmen promised to jump into Lake Thun and the bobsledder Melanie Hasler promised to stand at the opera house in Zurich and sing a song.
He is following in his mother’s footsteps
Latvian biathlete Ieva Cederštrēma-Volfa made her Olympic debut in Lillehammer in 1994. She was the first Latvian biathlete to compete in the Olympic Games.
Now her daughter is following in her mother’s footsteps. In Italy, Estere Volfa takes part in her first Olympic Games as a biathlete. However, this is not her first Olympic Games. As a 16-year-old, she made her Olympic debut four years ago in Beijing, but back then as a cross-country skier.
However, Estere Volfa has now changed sports and for a few years now the 20-year-old has been focusing entirely on biathlon.
During the Olympic adventure, her mother stands by her daughter and supports her.
– I am very proud of her and happy that she is doing what makes her happy. The fact that we both chose this path is something very special for our entire family, mother Ieva Cederštrēma-Volfa previously said in interviews.
– I have accompanied her from her first steps and look forward to everything that lies ahead in her career.
