“The ski entourage doesn’t have to go to North America every year”

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Pernilla Wiberg, Anja Pärson, Frida Hansdotter and Sara Hector (30). The Swedish women’s ski team shines not with quantity, but with class. They have all been Olympic champions in the past three decades: Wiberg in 1992 and 1994, Pärson in 2006, Hansdotter in 2018 and Hector in 2022. The latter was perhaps the most surprising.

Hector’s parents weren’t into skiing. The father is a math teacher (“I learned to count with him”), the mother was an English and German teacher (“I learned to read with her”). Years ago she was diagnosed with the neurological disease ALS. Hector has been collecting donations for research for years – knowing that her mother is unlikely to be cured.

Her boyfriend saved her from being fired

Hector doesn’t want to complain. The giant slalom specialist from Sandviken is used to fighting. “I’m not super talented nor blessed with a lot of confidence,” she says herself, but she impresses with her tremendous determination, the fun she takes from skiing and the physical strength that some women in the ski circus envy for. Hector, who now lives in Au in the Bregenzerwald (Austria), drives the only home races of the season in Are. And even if the season hasn’t gone entirely to her liking, Hector is one of the favorites – at least in the giant slalom.

A few years ago it was very different. In the winter of 2018/19 things went badly for Hector. “I thought maybe it was with top sport. I almost lost confidence in myself,” she says. Thanks to her friend Robin, who works in a hotel in Sweden from December to April, the thoughts of dismissal disappeared. not always greener on the other side,” he told her. “From that point on, I stopped pushing myself too hard.”

She lives (partly) in Austria because of the environment

The older, the looser? This is exactly the case with Hector. She is, however, very concerned about climate change, for example. In Saas-Fee, where Hector has been preparing for the season for ten years, he is clearly visible. “You can see with the naked eye how the glacier is retreating. That hurts my heart.”

Hector is aware that as a ski racer she is not a model student. Nor does it have a magic formula to stop climate change. “I know the subject is complex.” The sport has multiple goals, but it can also adapt, she believes. “The ski entourage doesn’t have to go to North America every year – and certainly not twice a winter, as the guys did recently. I think we need to shorten the travel distances. That’s another reason why I decided to go in Austria live and not have to fly back to Sweden every time.”

Source : Blick