XC Skiing: The 10 km Classic at the Trondheim World Championships in Sight
Calle Halfvarsson is thirty-five years old. Next winter, he will compete in his seventeenth season. In an interview given to Aftonbladet and other media from the Nordic kingdom, during a national team training camp in Trondheim (Norway), the star of Swedish XC skiing provides updates about himself. Already, the indicators are positive: “I was able to do everything I wanted during the summer,” he says, without displaying full fitness, however. He admits to being tired after the sessions. Nonetheless, this should help make up for the previous season, during which he failed to stand on the podium once and only made it into the top five twice in the World Cup for XC skiing.
His last individual achievement dates back to March 2023, in Lahti (Finland), where he finished second in the classic sprint behind Johannes Hoesflot Klæbo.
“Sometimes a very poor season can give you even more motivation to come back and show who you are,” he told SVT. And that seems to be his mindset of the moment after also participating in the Blink Festival and Toppidrettsveka in recent weeks.
In the program for the upcoming World Championships, Calle Halfvarsson has already noted the 10 km classic.
But this ambition must not be trampled by health issues, which he experienced during the 2023-2024 season.
A family man (he has two children), he is not immune to germs and viruses. However, it is out of the question for him to isolate himself, even when Casper-Lo, his two-year-old son, goes to kindergarten. For now, he and his partner have chosen not to enroll him in school immediately. “He sees other people and other children, goes on adventures with his grandmother, grandfather, and Isabell [Olsson, the mother]. And when I’m home, I go outside a lot with him, so that we’re not always cooped up and he can also see something else,” says the young father.
