Racing finaly started.

Today was my first race, the heats of K1 500m. It went pretty fast and I feelt good. A few things can be done better still I did a 1.36,6 so times are good. My friend the Rocket-Man a.k.a Adam Van Koeverden broke his own worldrecord in the heats - thats was really impressive and clearly hes the man to beat on saturday. All I have to do before that is worrie about getting there. The semifinal draws are allready official and I have to race the 2,3,4th from last years worlds amongst  some other fast guys. First 3 qulifies for the final so competition is very strong!! Time to step up and do what I came here to do.

Yan Quing

This is my third day in Yan Quing a smaller city 1,5hours outside of Beijing. I really like this place that we are charing with the swe cyklists. The cyklists are doing extremely well and today Gustaf took a silver and a few days ago Emma took a sliver. So we are where the action is so to speak, swedens only medlals spring out of theese grounds. This area is super nice and training is perfect. I've been doing really well the last few days in training even though we more or less just got here and should still be affected by the travel, weather and time change. To say that we are treated like VIP's here is not a lie. They are really looking after us! So much staff and the hotel is enormous and just for us - absolutely amazing. Yeterday the mayor came to our training too - pretty cool.

Still home...

I'm still at home in Sweden but departing for China isn't far away. I'll fly out of Stockholm on Saturday and before that I have som nice days left at home. I feel ready now and I'm looking forward to line up at the start line pretty soon. Training has so far been going the way I want to. So hopefully racing will be fun. It's like a coach once said. "Fun at training boring at racing. Boring at training fun at racing." Hahaha something like that. Luckely I enjoy hard training so I whish for a fun/fun situation - can that be possible - let's hope so. I'm also excited to se who will carry the swe-flag at the opening ceremonies - it's yet to be announced. This time I will have to watch the opening on TV. That feels a bit vierd but ok - I excpect a great show and something far from the normal.

Leaving Canada.

At the airport enjoying free carrots and unlimited soda. It will be good to go home after three weeks of solid training with van Koeverden. I heard that the weather is absolutely perfect at home so I cant wait to jump in "my" lake. I love the sweedish summer. I will take it easy for a few days when I get home and hopefully there will be time for some lazy beachculture. Beach culture in fridgid Scandinavia - yes its true at least for a few weeks of the year, or for longer if you are really tuff.

It was my second time in canada and I must say I'm impressed by the people, very kind and welcoming. I'm also glad to see the way they care about the enviroment. Well a lot of them still drive around in far to big cars, but recyceling and organicproducts are in fashion. Recycle is radical!

Toronto

Now in Toronto getting into my final week here in North America. Training has been really good and I hope to continue keeping the pressure up untill saturday when i leave for Sweden. Las two weeks in Ottawa was really great an absolutely great place to paddle and a fantastic club with lots of nice members. 

Ottawa

Things are good in Ottawa. The club here Rideau is realy nice and I feel very welcome. Training with Adam is great and I feel quite good on the water. Ottawa as a city is really nice and the diffrent pople that I have eather visited or stayed at have all been great. I must say that life here seems to bee really good to most people. Tomorrow is only two sessions in the morning and the afrernoon off - it looks like some beachwolleyboll is on in the afternoon if the weather is good.

Canada

In Canada at the moment. Training in Ottawa with canadian team. Things has been happening pretty fast lately. From racing in Poznan I got straight to swe nationals and straight from there to Algonquin park in Ontario where things slowed down. Spent three relaxing days at Roots supernice cottage. Paddling there is great an living in the wilderness was so relaxing. Training is going good at the moment and Ottawa is really nice.

On the move.

Straight home from WC in Poland where i got my 5th place in K1. Straight home to another race - Swedish nationals. Normaly our nationals is one week of intence racing but my time was limiting me to be there only two days this year. But during those two days I managed to do some really good results. 5 medals - among them taking my 4th gold in a row at K1 500m. After nationals I stayed in Gothembeurg only to wake up at 4.30 the morning after to catch the morning plane to London and from there keep moving towards Canada and Toronto - where I am now, having breakfast.

26 hours at home - sweet.

At home again after worldcup in Poznan Poland. I got away with a 5th place in my main event k-1 500m and did a really good time 1.37.0 but that didn't help much when the podium boys all broke the previous worldrecord and for the fisrt time did 1.35's thats impressive. i'm now home since 3am this morning and home for antoher 19 hours an early morning drive in my car tomorrow on my way to swe nationals. Stoked - not. It would have been nice to stay home for more than a couple of hours but I also whant to do nationals and support my club.

East vs. West Coast

This week I've been "on the move" Started with going to Västerås on monday. In Västerås I was training with Markus my K2 partner. I stayed at their super nice new house and got really spoiled by Anna (Markus girlfriend) who took great care of us .... really spoiled. It was nice to be back in Västerås to visit some old friends. I lived there for two years 2004-2006 so it's a really familiar enviroment and a really good place to train on. After some really good training I took of to the extremely nice Swedish West Coast and Smögen for som time off. We were celebrating midsummer and that is my absolute favourite feast. Very good times and absolutly my favourite part of Sweden. This in combination with happy and nice people makes it the best. And from Smögen I went to Grundsund also on the west coast to meet up with some other friends. Really really good times there too! All in all a really good week! Next week is WC 3 in Poznan and only K1 for me - that will be fun to I hope.

Whoop Whoop

After todays workout a live band was playing coversongs outside my house. They were celebrating my house was 50 years. They were playing "simply the best" - I took it as a sign hehe ;-) Great training today both in the efternoon and in the morning we were three from swe-national team on the water. I really like training in a good group. Had lunch with a friend of mine who is going to bike around our lake (300km) alongside 17000 other bikers - he was fueling up on pasta in enourmous proportions and made me stuff down about 25kg pasta too.

Silver WC 1

Back home after an weekend in Szeged Hungary and worldcup no uno. Had a great competittion and the silver in K-2 1000m was really nice! The race was only the second race in internationall competition for me and my partner Markus Oscarsson. And the first race where Markus didn't do K-1 right before. So we were really happy with our result. It seams like summer is on a high here at home and a beutifull day with 25 degrees today and brutal dropsets in the gym in the morning and som slow recovery paddling in the afternoon.

United.

Today I woke up at 6 very tired - snoozed until 6.45 and then I was late for the 7.00 training of course. I got to the club around 7.30 and it was a windy (shitty) day so I battled with the wawes for 1,5km into lake Munksjön where I did the morning session. Not a good one - I was so tired. After the paddling Sofia and I went to the slalom hill in Jära for hill unning with poles - very hard! 5 times to the top - hard work. I saw a snake and even though my hart was pumpim at maximum allready I think it took a few extra beats there. In the afternoon I went to my very good friends the Anderssons family's mothers funeral. It was a very nice funeral and very sad. We all loved Birgitta and she left us way to early at age 50. Some more training after that and now I'm back home again. Tired but not time to sleep yet - still have to pack for Hungary tomorrow. WC 1 i Szeged.

Nuevo!

Today was a great day. It started with a nice good paddle with Adam Van Koeverden in the morning followed by gym. I was supposed to do testing in Stockholm today but it got cancelled and I had therefore time to drive Adma to the airport. In the afternoon I packed my K-1 on the trailer going to Hungary and later went for a 1800m swim at Attarpsbadet in the late afternoon sunshine. An absolutely great day - summer in sweden is the best!