Aksel Lund SVINDAL

THE 26TH OF DECEMBER 1982 I was born in Lørenskog just outside of Oslo. 3550 grams heavy and 50 cm long I was the first born child of Ina Lund and Bjørn Svindal. When I was 2 years and three months old my brother Simen was born. The first six years of my life I lived in Fetsund and after that we moved to Skedsmo where I have lived most of my life. Both places are about a 20 min drive from Oslo.

MY MOM AND DAD were both skiers, so we would ski a lot. Every holiday we went to Geilo (one of the top ski destinations in Norway) and stayed with my grandparents at their cabin. Geilo is where I learned to ski. I got my first pair of skies for my 3rd birthday. Atomics that were 100cm long. I was the first to use them and since that my brother and my two cousins also used them as their first pair of skies. I still have them at home. As I got a little older we would also go skiing at the smaller hills around Oslo on normal weekday evenings and in the weekends.

I LOST MY MOTHER when I was 8. A big shock for our family. I was gonna get another brother and everything seemed to be normal. But then when she was giving birth there were complications. My mother passed away and the child shortly after. I have always been close to my grandparents, and the time after my mom past away they spent a lot of time at our house. Helping out in any way they could. My dad had a company to run, and with me and my brother wanting to ski as much as possible, winter time was a busy time for us. But things worked out well both at home, in school and on the ski slopes.

AT 15 YEARS I DECIDED to move to Oppdal(ski destination 400km north of Oslo). Oppdal has one of the high schools in Norway were you can combine skiing and education. I had 4 great years at Oppdal. During this time is when I first made it on to the Norwegian Junior Team and started travelling more around Europe to race.

AFTER OPPDAL I checked out what options I had for education. With my travelling schedule they were very limited. I figured I only had one chance of being a skier and that I better make the most out of it. I could always go back to school later if I wanted to.

SO SINCE I WAS 19 I have had my focus on skiing. There have been changes, but the basics are the same. It doesn’t matter if your 1st or 30th in the world. Your focus is on your sport and how to get better at it. In the season of 2006/2007 I enjoyed a lot of success with two World Championship gold medals and winning the overall World Cup title. But the winter of 2008 was for sure different than expected. After a big crash on the Golden Eagle jump at the downhill course in Beaver Creek, CO USA late November 2007, I couldn’t race the whole winter. I spent weeks in the hospital both in Vail CO and in Oslo. After getting out of the hospitals it was a lot of work getting back into shape. After three months I felt strong enough to go skiing again. It was just cruising and not real race training, but it was the first step to get back on the World Cup tour for the 2008/2009 season.

AFTER ALMOST A YEAR away from ski racing and the World-Cup tour I came back to Beaver Creek and won the World-Cup race on the same mountain where I crashed. Took home the Overall World-Cup and a World-Championship title the same year. 2010 was all about the Olympics. And after three awesome weeks in Canada I travelled home with gold, silver and bronze!

IT’S HARD TO TOP MY BEST SEASONS, but there is always a force that drives you to get better and faster. And everybody else gets better, so that is the only way to be competitive. In 2011 I defended my Gold in super-combined at 2011 World Championships in Garmisch-Partenkirchen Germany. And in 2012 I won the World Cup Super-G title. Every year there are new races, new titles and new goals to reach. Winning the overall world cup is probably the biggest of them all. I´ve been top 4 every year since 2006. Winning it twice but not since 2009, I think its about time to take home the big title again.

Courtesy:

http://www.aksellundsvindal.com/biography