Oskar Svärd won Vasaloppet three times and made history as the first winner of Marcialonga using skis with no grip wax. Here, Team Eksjöhus Pro Team Director talks about the most significant differences in today’s long-distance skiing compared to his 16 seasons as an elite athlete.

Team Eksjöhus is in the final preparations for the second season in Ski Classics. Right now, the team is at a two-week training camp in Vålådalen, Sweden, to add training hours and prepare for the winter’s challenges. 

Oskar Svärd is a Pro Team Director for Team Eksjöhus and has a solid long-distance career to look back on.

Svärd started his commitment to long-distance skiing in 1999. He won Vasaloppet three times (2003, 2005, and 2007), took three victories in the Czech Jizerska Padesatka (2003, 2004, and 2010), and a win in Marcialonga in 2010. In 2016, he ended his elite career.

What are the significant differences now compared to when you were active?

“More people are involved, and the reason for this is the teams. Ski Classics has meant more people can commit through the teams and the team competition. Since then, television broadcasts have meant a lot. Previously, it was only Vasaloppet that “people” had an eye on. But few people knew that the same skiers were at the top in all the other long-distance races. That’s where you see television’s impact,” says Svärd.

Another big difference is that all skiing on long-distance races is now double poling. It is only in exceptional cases that any other technique is used in the races:

“I was the first ever to win Marcialonga on skis without grip wax. It was 2010, and at that time, I had skied a few flat long races already before without grip wax. German König Ludwig Lauf was an example. And at Marcialonga, even before the victory in 2010, I had chosen to add a short kick zone. At Marcialonga, you wanted grip wax for the first 18 kilometers so you could use diagonal striding in the first climb. But you knew already before the race that the grip wax wouldn’t be enough to use for the final climb to the finish. There you had a choice, either double poling up the final climb or to stay and add more grip wax,” says Svärd and continues:

“Too bad that I didn’t know then what I know now. And it’s cool that there has been such a development that has happened so quickly. After my victory on pure double poling in Marcialonga came Jörgen Aukland’s victory in Vasaloppet in 2013 and Petter Eliasen’s victory in the Birkebeinerrennet in 2015, and now it is basically only double poling that counts,” concludes Oskar Svärd.

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