The cross-country skiers have been training for many years to be in top shape for the Olympic Games. But you can’t win medals without good skis. It is crucial that the dikes do their job successfully.
Peter Reinebo firmly believes that Russia did everything in Sochi to find out what the Swedish skiers had under their boots.
– We have no evidence that we were bugged, but I’m sure it happened in several places. It followed a clear pattern, the former head of operations for the Swedish Olympic Committee tells DN.
The pattern he’s talking about This was partly about different ways for the Russians to get information, but also different ways to make things difficult for other nations and help their own athletes.
The doping scandal that broke out after the Games, in which Russian figure skaters’ samples were exchanged for clean ones through a hole in a wall, is a clear example. But Reinebo highlights other things:
● That the Russians claimed that competition areas were closed “for security reasons” so that strong nations like Sweden were not allowed to test the courses.
● This information from the SOK office in the Olympic Village was intercepted – when they returned home to Sweden, Russian digital traces were found in the computers.
● That agents were disguised as volunteers.
– Then we were also able to calculate that Russia was looking for sensitive information.
Tre Kronor’s dressing room was a location identified by SOK – the other and more important was the Swedish Wallabode.
Sweden had tried to get its own voting vehicle there, but was rejected. An attempt to convert the stand into one of the empty ones was also rejected, reinforcing the impression that some sort of equipment had been installed in the stand that had been allocated to Sweden.
– Then we decided to reveal as little information as possible. We decided that they should talk about serious things outside and talk in code or tell pure untruths in the shed. Psychologically turn the situation to our advantage.
Urban Nilsson was Swedish course manager 2012-2019, including during the 2014 Olympic Games – where the national cross-country skiing team won a total of eleven medals, including gold in both the women’s and men’s relays.
– There were very special things in Sochi. “It wasn’t a fair game and an Olympic gold is worth a lot, so I think they probably tried everything to find out as much as they could,” he says.
But he is not as convinced about the wiretapping as Reinebo.
– He probably knows more than me, but I don’t actually think so, because then we had… if you can boast, we had really good skis. And if they had figured out what we were using, they probably would have done just as well.
Nilsson says so In his time, Sweden and Norway had the best resources – just as they do today, although somewhat more balanced – along with Russia (now excluded as a nation). But that all countries really know the basics of voting.
– It’s about creating a better system when testing ramps, skis and structures – that’s where you hit the mark. And we always said: “What happens in the stable stays in the stable.”
During the tests outside the stand, Nilsson and his colleagues used a number system.
– You have a lot of test skis. They have a coded language and then it could be that “Ski number six wins this test”. The recipe is then written in the wort booth, i.e. which wort was used, how it was applied and so on.
Current paddock manager Anders Svanebo says his team is focused on his team and he doesn’t think too much about what others are doing – whether things would go badly for Sweden in a competition – or whether the other nations are paying attention to what the Swedish dykes are doing.
These days, Sweden brings its own foal trailer to the Olympics, which is more difficult to monitor. But Svanebo can confirm that various code words still appear when leaving the trailer.
– We don’t talk openly and maybe not on the radio either.
Sweden was assigned a radio station intended only for Sweden.
Do you think there are wiretaps today?
– I’m not technically proficient, but I don’t think it’s impossible. With today’s technology, you never know who is listening to the radio.
