In 2019, after finishing Vasaloppet, he decided: no more cross-country skiing. Now, Mehdi Zaghloumi, who lives in Lund, Sweden, aims to go to the Winter Olympics for Tunisia.

Mehdi Zaghloumi was born and raised in Stockholm. His mother and father come from Tunisia:

“My father thought it was very important for us siblings to be aware of our Tunisian roots. We have always had many Tunisian influences at home, and we were in Tunisia every summer until I was 18,” says Mehdi Zaghloumi, who moved to Vemdalen, a village in Sweden, a few years ago.

There, he fell in love with a woman in the local bakery and cross-country skiing. The woman in the bakery is now his wife, and the couple is expecting their first child. For the past few months, the family has made their home in Lund, Skåne, at the southern tip of Sweden.

But cross-country skiing is still an essential part of Mehdi’s life. This is even after his debut in Vasaloppet 2019, when he decided it would be his last ski race.

And many Vasaloppet debutants still have made the same “journey” as Mehdi. But now, he decided to try to make it to the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy.

“A friend of a friend has roots in an island nation and was able to make it to compete in slopestyle at the Olympics, and that’s when I first thought about trying to make it to the Olympics and compete for Tunisia. Because I realized early on that going to the Olympics for Sweden is not a realistic dream. But I have learned what a huge sacrifice it is to go to the Olympics, and it is more about the bureaucratic parts than the actual training.”

The main reason for this is that Tunisia has no national ski federation.

“I have been in contact with both the International Olympic Committee (ICO) and the International Skiing and Snowboarding Federation (FIS), but both refer to the fact that I must have a national federation that can register me to start collecting FIS points to qualify for the Olympics eventually. I have taken help from my father, who has been in contact with his contacts in Tunisia. But the process takes time. But I don’t give up,” says Mehdi.

How is the training going?

“It’s going well. I have had problems with a shoulder injury this summer, so there has been a little less roller skiing than I planned. But I do 10-14 hours of training a week, mainly through running and cycling. But now the shoulder is feeling better, so I hope for more skiing. I would love to do more FIS competitions for the winter, but it will be financially challenging to go to Gällivare, for example, given that I live in Lund. So, it will probably mainly be long races in 157 XCC Originals. Those races provide a lot. Then the dream is to solve the administrative parts so I can get to the World Championships in Trondheim in 2025 and then the Olympics in Val di Fiemme the following year,” concludes Mehdi Zaghloumi.