In 1998, 17-year-old Anna-Karin Strömstedt made her World Cup debut in cross-country skiing. During her career, she won a World Cup relay in 2007 (together with Lina Andersson, Charlotte Kalla and Britta Johansson Norgren), competed in one World Championships and one Olympic Games. In the latter, she was in the middle of a fascinating medal fight in the final leg of the relay. The Swedish team finished fourth place at the 2006 Olympic Relay in Pragelato.

A few seasons later, she switched to biathlon, making her World Cup debut in 2010 and spending four seasons at the World Cup level before retiring from her elite career.

For the past two seasons, she has been an expert commentator for Viaplay’s broadcasts of the World Cup (and the World Championships in Planica last year).

The 43-year-old Strömstedt has been living in Norway for about a decade, and she sees several reasons why Norway has dominated cross-country skiing in the long term:

“I think the training of elite skiers from different countries is relatively similar. But one difference in Norway is that there is such an enormous scale. There are so many who invest from their junior years. This means that if there are fewer skiers on the Norwegian side, it doesn’t show up in the same way as in Sweden, where there are so many fewer elite skiers,” says Strömstedt to Langd.se.

In recent weeks, ProXCskiing.com has published historical reviews of the number of skiers and nations that have made it into the top ten in the World Cup and Ski Classics (links to these compilations can be found at the end of the article). And with a few exceptions, there is a substantial Norwegian dominance.

You can also see that Norwegian dominance, especially in the World Cup in cross-country skiing, is becoming increasingly evident on the men’s side. On the women’s side, it has changed, and Sweden now dominates.

This is a clear difference compared to about a decade ago:

“If we go back ten years, Marit Bjørgen and Therese Johaug were extremely dominant. And there were more people following behind them. They set a standard for how to train and pushed others to train. But it is far from everyone who manages to train like that. They are, in several ways, unique individuals and athletes,” says Strömstedt and continues:

“A clear difference between the national team activities in Sweden compared to Norway is that in the Norwegian national team, there is one coach who is responsible for all of the national team’s athletes. On the Swedish side, “almost all” athletes have different coaches, and there are, of course, both advantages and disadvantages with both variants.”

Does the training look different now compared to when you broke through?

“I would say that the basis is very similar. When it comes to the physiological conditions for going fast on skis, they haven’t changed. Even though there has been a shift towards more races with a mass start. But there is no hocus-pocus in training. Then, there has been an increased focus on technique. There are more people who really “challenge” the details. Testing the limits. Maybe I would say that everyone is a bit more like Gunde Svan now,” says Strömstedt and continues:

“I feel that all training has become more specific now. You train more technique and strength and try to develop the parts that you are best at. All cross-country skiers double pole more now compared to about 15 years ago, and they have also become stronger in the upper body and core.”

 However, different endurance sports have different approaches. In running, many people train double threshold, and in long-distance running, more people choose to do one longer session each day rather than two shorter sessions. Are there any trends in this?

“I think it is very individual what suits each individual and what they have responded best to in terms of training. In terms of one longer session per day, it’s something that traditional skiers also do, but not as much as long-distance skiers. The double threshold approach is more common in athletics, but some skiers run days with double threshold sessions, especially towards the season. This way, you can more easily periodize your training and have more time to train a lot during busy periods.”

What are the most significant differences in how elite skiers train versus recreational skiers?

“There are many. But if I am to generalize, I think an elite skier’s variation is the biggest difference. This is done with long, easy sessions with a low degree of effort to build volume and a foundation and for you to be able to push during the weeks, in most cases, two or three interval sessions. The variation in intensity looks completely different among the recreational skiers, where it may be a bit of “old man training” with an hour where you are out and drive pretty hard. Then you feel satisfied when you come home and have sweated. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this, but there are clear differences in the approach,” says Strömstedt.

Historical Compilation

• History: Find all the Ski Classics bib winners since Season I
• Nightmare season for Norway – best for Sweden
• The numbers behind Norway’s dominance in the men’s World Cup