A new perspective

Spotted this cyclist in Handen. The bike looked interesting so I asked if I could get a few shots. To get the conversation going I asked something like 'what muscle groups gets the best workout here'. That rather stupid question amused Anders Bäckman a bit as the answer was quite obvious. That would be the arms was his response. Four years ago Anders was out on a bike ride (on a normal looking bicycle), when he had an accident. A lorry driver had parked in the bike lane and Anders was left paralyzed after that crash. Hence this bike construction that he uses today. I asked him if he uses the bike often and he said that he rides more today than he did before the accident. Anders lives in Handen and works as an animator. What I didn't ask was anything else, but luckily for me Anders left a comment on flickr and a link to his web site. Turns out he is a world class Tetraplegic Elite Handcyclist, who won Bronze in the very recent world championships!

Superwoman

You might remember Sarah. When I write this she is on her way home from Doha. Where she won two gold medals in the World Swimming Championships on Sunday. And she broke the world record in both races! Amazing. And earlier in the championship she won another gold medal and one silver medal in the space of 35 minutes. Fantastic.

A World Class Swimmer

Sarah Sjöström is an amazing athlete and world class swimmer. She has won two World Championship gold medals. And nine European Championship gold medals. And countless silver and bronze medals in many championships over the last six years. And earlier this year she set a new world record on 50 meter butterfly with the time 24,43 seconds. She has also held the world record on the 100 meter butterfly. I met Sarah yesterday at my favorite cafe. After shooting a portrait I wanted to try a Brenizer method photo, and Sarah suggested we shoot that in front of her car to make her car sponsor happy, and obviously I messed that up shooting with the wrong lens! I did manage to stitch together a couple of photos so if you know them you can tell that she is sponsored by Lagerstedts Bil.

The European Champion

This is the winner of the women's Sörmland Ultra Marathon. Kajsa Berg from Huddinge. She is an experienced runner and very modest about her success. When she is not out running she works as a school teacher. She started out as a Marathon runner and has three starts in Stockholm Marathon. Her best result there is a Bronze medal. She switched to running ultra long races about one year ago. Earlier this year Kajsa ran in the Swiss Alpine Marathon. More impressive is the result in the World Championships where she finished in second place! That race was also the European Championships, and she was the gold medal winner in that race. She averages around 500 kilometres per week, and doesn't ever get really tired!

Hardcore Exercise

Biking towards home yesterday a woman on roller skis flew by me in Jordbro. I caught up with her a little later and realised that it was Emmy Thelberg, one of the best mountain bike riders in the country. She was on her way to a gravel pit where she was going to run up a sandy hill ten times! That sounded like a photo-op to me, so I decided to tag along, as it gave me an opportunity to test the Tamron zoom lens. Since we last met Emmy has had some success in her sport. She won the Långloppscupen,the long distance cup. She won Bronze in the National Championships. She competed in the the Birkebeiner cycling race, the world's largest mountain-bike race that takes place annually in Norway.

A World Class MTB Racer

This is Emmy. I met her at the lakes on Sunday. My first impression was that she must be an elite skier, because she looked super fit. Turns out I was half right. Emmy is a world-class mountain bike racer. She has competed in the two latest UCI MTB Marathon World Championships. Emmy finished in 19th place last year, and 16th the year before. She has won a few races and you can see more results on her Swedish blog. Emmy comes from a village outside Gävle called Valbo and she competes for Härnösand CK. At the moment Emmy is studying dentistry, and because of that she moved to Haninge six months ago, and now resides in an student apartment in Handen. We talked a bit about cycling, and I told Emmy to get hold of a copy of the local bike map so that she can find her way around Haninge come the spring.

A Champion of Champions?

I met one of my childhood idols at the cafe in Handen yesterday. Frank Andersson. One of the famous 56ers. The others include Björn Borg, Ingemar Stenmark and of course Linda Haglund, that you have met on this blog before. Frankie Boy was a world class wrestler. A three time World Champion and Olympic medallist. I remember seeing many of his matches on TV. Lately he has been back in the media eye as one of the celebrities in the Swedish version of Let's Dance, where he made it to the finals. Next year you will probably see him in the hugely popular TV show Champions of Champions, where twelve former world class athletes (including Linda I might add), compete for the title . It isn't official yet if Frank will be one of the twelve, so this might be a scoop!

Ultramarathon Runners

For the tenth year running (pun intended), the Sörmland Ultra Marathon took place over the weekend. It's a fifty kilometre run (31.07 miles), from Björkhagen in Stockholm to Lake Rudan in Haninge. The race started at 10 am on Saturday. It's a very tough course with many hills, and you run through the Tyresta National Park equpped with a map. Luckily for the athletes the weather was good. Sunny and around 11 Celsius and there were many stations along the trail where you could get water. I was at the finishing line taking photos and talking to people. This smiling woman is Gloria Vinstedt. She won the women's event with a finishing time of 3.50.54 beating the second placed runner Kajsa Friström with half an hour! After the price ceremony I walked over to Gloria for a chat and a portrait. She told me that it was the first time she had competed in this race. She's raised in Tyresö, the neighbouring municipality to Haninge. Gloria started running ultramarathon races earlier this year. Before that she was a marathon runner for three years. Her best marathon time is 2.56 from the Paris Marathon. Gloria also told me that she is a student at the University of Gävle. Studying to become a health educator. The men's event was won by Brian Buchtrup Nielsen. More photos from this event in the slideshow.

A World Class Sprinter

When I was a teenager there was a group of very successful Swedish athletes that where known as the 56ers. Because they were all born in 1956. This is one of them, Linda Haglund. You will know a few of the others. The ones that stands out a bit are Björn Borg and Ingemar Stenmark. There was also a wrestler, Frank Andersson, and another alpine skier, Stig Strand. Linda was a very good sprinter. She has one gold medal, and four silver medals from different European Championships. In the Moscow Olympics in 1980 she finished fourth in the 100m final. The best ever result by a Swedish sprinter. Her personal record in the 100m is 11.16, and that is still the Swedish record thirty years later! Today Linda works as a teacher in Haninge. She teaches English, Biology and of course Gymnastics. Her philosophy in life and as a teacher is to always be positive and look towards the future and see all the possibilities that lay ahead. She is also a published author, and has worked as head track coach for Santa Monica College. I met her a couple of days ago. We were both on our bikes and luckily for me the former world class sprinter had time for a chat and a few photos. She also told me that once in a while the 56ers meet and boy what stories they must be able to tell!

Sporting Emotions

One of the reasons that people enjoy sports has to be all the different emotions and feelings they arouse. During the 25manna race last weekend I noticed quite a few. Joy. Anticipation. Nervousness. Anger. Sadness. Disappointment. And pain. Here are a few of those emotions.

Top photo shows the joy from the best placed Swedish team, Södertälje Nykvarn Orientering. They finished in third place and were all smiles in the finishing area, posing for the photographers. At least for a while. Because a little later the team was disqualified. The reason was that their runner on the last leg had used another team members SportIdent-stick. That's a device that electronically records the results of all competitors in this type of event. On the second photo you can see a female runner that was completely exhausted after finishing her leg. And on the third and last photo, a young girl that looks both tired and a bit surprised as she is looking at what must have been a painful cut on her arm.

The Finnish Connection

Orienteering is a big sport in the Nordic countries. You have already seen the winners of the 25manna race, Halden from Norway. Today I will show you three photos with a Finnish connection. First up is Anni-Maija Fincke from the Finnish team Tampereen Pyrintö. Anni-Maija ran the last leg for her team, and they finished in second place. Pyrintö is the girl in the background. The girl in the foreground is Erica Andersson from Lunds OK. Second photo shows members of the Tampereen Pyrintö club celebrating and posing for the media . On the third photo you can see Juha from another Finnish club, Turun Suunnistajat, or if it is Turun Metsänkävijät. I met him as he was making his way back to his teams tent after he had finished his leg. Juha was very tired and had a bad hangover, not a good combination for an athlete I think!

Athletes of different age

The sport of Orienteering has been around since 1897. A good thing about the sport and especially the 25manna race is that athletes and runners of different age and gender can compete side by side. As proven on these three photos from the competition at the Fields of Nytorp in Västerhaninge on Saturday. On the first photo you can see a very tired runner from IFK Göteborg. His team finished in 33th position. Not bad considering that there were more than 300 teams involved this year. On the second photo you can see the sisters Emma and Hanna Björklund. They are members of the club OK Kåre in Falun. I met them after they had finished their leg. And as you can see they were not all smiles. It was a tough race and they made a few mistakes. I haven't been able to identify the runner on the third photo, but he represents OK Klyftamo from Götene, and they finished just outside the top 100.

For a look at all the results from the race press here.

We Are All The Winners!

This weekend more than 9000 runners competed in the annual orienteering race known as the 25manna. The name means that every team has to have 25 runners, and all teams have to consist of both men and women. This years race took place at Nytorps Ängar in Västerhaninge. It's the second time that Haninge has welcomed the elite runners. I have tried the sport as a teenager, in school, but quickly realised that running around in a forest with a map an compass is not for me. The weather was perfect on Saturday with sunshine and around 10 Celsius. I live only 5 kilometres away so I jumped on my bike and headed for the Fields of Nytopr. Elite teams from Sweden, Norway, Finland and a few other countries competed and believe it or not, but the first portrait I took was of four guys from the Norwegian team Halden. And a couple of hours after I met them they won the event! Seen here on the first photo are Pekka Itavuo, Søren Bobach, Marius Bjugan and Erik Axelsson but not necessarily in that order. On the second photo you can see the smiling Anne Margrethe Hausken who ran the last leg for the Norwegian club. Their combined winning time was 5 hours, 13 minutes and 34 seconds. On the third photo some of the winners are posing for the media. Over the next few days you can expect to see many more photos from this big event. Including a few portraits of the organizers, the many volunteers and of course a few portraits of the runners.

A World Champion

If you know anything about swimming you will recognise this girl. Sarah Sjöström is a world class swimmer. Earlier this summer she broke the world record on the women's 100 metre butterfly in the World Championships in Rome. And she did it twice! First in the semi final, and then again in the final when the won the gold medal. Back in March of 2008 Sarah, then an unknown 14 year old, shocked the swimming world when she won the 100 metre butterfly gold in the European Championships. Later that year she made her Olympic debut in the Beijing Games. I met her on Saturday during the Haninge Day celebrations when Sarah received a bracelet with the inscription World Champion from the Mayor of Haninge. And as a surprise birthday gift the municipality gave her a paid driver's licence course. I asked Sarah about her favorite places in Haninge and she picked the Torvalla swimming arena and Cafe Momo at the mall. After I shot a few portraits I told Sarah that I had made a photomosaic after she won that gold last summer. When she heard that she got a bit excited and we walked over to where her family was waiting. It turns out that Sarah's dad Göran had made a poster from my mosaic and it's been hanging on a wall at their place ever since. If I get my stationary computer up and running I will try to make a new mosaic from Sarah's latest world record swim. Sarah who turned sixteen in August is now attending secondary school at the nearby Fredrika Bremer School where she is studying media.