The roller ski racing season is almost over, and two months remain until the Ski Classics starts in Bad Gastein, Austria, on December 9 and 10. Here, Pro Team Director Anton Järnberg, from Lager 157 Ski Team, talks about the roller ski season and the road to the season on snow.

Lager 157 Ski Team started its roller ski competition season on May 13, when the 157 XCC Roller Ski Tour started with the 157 XC Criterium. Since then, the Pro Team athletes have competed extensively:

“Racing on roller skis has become an important part of keeping the sport going throughout the year. Then it’s an important part of marketing both for us and the skiers, but also to get good feedback to see that we are on the right path. Plus it means that we get good training sessions. But we don’t let go of our form to perform at the roller ski races; winter is the priority in terms of competition,” says Lager 157 Ski Team’s Pro Team Director Anton Järnberg to Langd.se.

If we look at the roller ski season, what stands out regarding the team’s performance?

“We have several peaks. Alvar’s (Myhlback) competition during Toppidrettsveka; Emil (Persson) has made several solid races, and I think that both Karro and Linnea (Hedenström and Johansson) had several fine performances. Among other things, Linnea’s effort at Klarälvsloppet was the best she has done in a competition context. Overall, we have done well with many fine results, and if you look at it from the other side, we did not have the results we wanted at Alliansloppet. We had too many pole problems there during the last kilometers,” says Järnberg.

Read More: Solid Klarälvsloppet for Linnea Johansson

Lager 157 Ski Team has three training camps before going to Bad Gastein for the Ski Classics premiere (December 9-10).

“We run exactly the same plan as we did last year. This means a camp week in Båstad (Sweden) in the middle of October. We are going to Alicante/Benidorm, Spain, for the first two weeks of November, then to a snow camp at the end of November. The basic idea is Edsåsdalen,” says Järnberg.

How much of the athletes’ training do you manage?

“It’s a little different depending on who it is. We have both younger and older skiers, with the more experienced ones building up more experience. But we have a basic plan for everyone; then there are individual adaptations. But compared to five years ago, we control much more from the team.”

Why is that?

“There wasn’t really a common sense then. We went to the camps together, and then it was ‘good luck, see you in four weeks.’ But if we take Emil, he has been working with similar plans since he joined the team. That setup has been updated along the way, and if you look at Emil’s setup for this year’s season compared to last year’s, it is largely copy-paste,” concludes Anton Järnberg.

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