Linn Svahn's valuation of the World Championship has to do with the question of her thoughts about the championship in Trondheim next year being posed to her when the competition season is barely two months away.
Championships are always the biggest, the ones you value the highest. It's clear that I'm looking forward to it. But it's nice to be distanced from it as long as possible. When I'm out training, it's not something I think about really, says the 24-year-old during the national team's high-altitude camp in Italy.
"Not that big"
Here and now, the focus is on what makes her stronger.
I'm quite separated from my training self and competition self. When you're standing here and have a bit of distance from the competition season, you think that the World Championship is not the whole world. It's special with championships, it's big. But it's not that big either, the World Championship is just a ski competition, she says and laughs.
Last season, Svahn won six individual World Cup races – five in sprint and one victory on 15 kilometers classical – and had seven more podium finishes. The Swede won the sprint cup and challenged Jessie Diggins, USA, for the overall victory, but had to give up in the finale in Falun.
It was my best season ever. I don't think I've ever had as much fun as last season. It was a really good year. It's fun that it's connected – that you're doing well and it's going well. Then sports are nice.
It was also then that Svahn returned to the national team after she and Frida Karlsson and Maja Dahlqvist had run a season on their own.
I think last season was the best ever in terms of federation management. We made a clear plan in the spring, the whole team together. This is what we want to develop and this is how we want to do it. Then we followed that line all year and we got development. The participation was really good.
Injury problems
When Svahn won the sprint in the Tour de Ski premiere the day before New Year's Eve last year, it was her first victory in a World Cup competition in over 1,000 days. She had nearly two years of injury problems in one shoulder after a crash during a World Cup race in Ulricehamn in early 2021.
It was only last year that I could start training based on what I want to train, not just what I can train. And then I got an immediate effect.
So how good can you become this winter?
No idea! It's always hard to predict now how it can go this winter. Right here and now, I don't care, says Linn Svahn.
Born: December 9, 1999 (24 years old).
Club: Östersunds SK.
Debut in the World Cup: March 16, 2019.
Main merits: Winner of the sprint cup 2019–2020 and 2023–2024, total second in the World Cup 2023–2024, has won 15 individual World Cup races and has eight more podium finishes.
+ November 22–24: Swedish premiere, Bruksvallarna.
+ November 29–December 1: World Cup premiere in Ruka, Finland.
+ December 28–January 5: Tour de Ski in Toblach and Val di Fiemme, Italy.
+ February 14–16: World Cup in Falun, Sweden.
+ February 26–March 9: World Championship in Trondheim, Norway.
+ March 15–16: World Cup in Holmenkollen, Norway.
+ March 21–23: World Cup final in Lahti, Finland.
