Life after the sports career: Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen

With a recent retirement as a professional Cross-Country skier, Norwegian Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen now travels fast to new horizons.

Since 22nd February 2007 - at the young age of twenty years - Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen amazed the Cross-Country skiing world. From that first gold medal in Sprint C at the World Ski Championships in Sapporo, we followed the compassionate athlete with great joy until her recent retirement.

In Japan, Astrid Jacobsen began to show the world her perfect and harmonious classic technique that accompanied her throughout her glorious career until her last unfortunate race at the Holmenkollen 30km C where she had to fight bad material. It was not the end of the career that anyone would have hoped for.

At the Olympic Winter Games 2018 in PyoengChang, Jacobsen raced to a well deserved gold medal with her Norwegian team mates in the relay. During seven World Championships, she collected a total of ten medals. In 258 World Cup starts, 43 podiums and six victories were taken by the Norwegian. The last pearl was achieved in Val di Fiemmes 10km Mst C during the last Tour de Ski. Grand achievements considering that Astrid faced strong dominating athletes in their eras such as Marit Bjørgen, Justyna Kowalczyk, Therese Johaug and others.

With the retirement from competitive sport, Astrid will now be able to show the same elegance and harmony in the hospital ward in Oslo wearing the white medical coat with the innate class and with her never out of line style with which she has always performed since junior categories in Cross-Country skiing. With the last medical exams that she will conclude in the middle of 2021, the Norwegian will have transformed herself from a Cross-Country skier to Doctor Jacobsen, maintaining that elegance and professionalism that have distinguished her in every occasion, on and off snowy tracks.

Outside of Cross-Country skiing, Astrid has always showed herself as a woman with culture and sensibility above the average, earning numerous appreciations from her colleagues and the whole Cross-Country family. In her new work environment, surely she will face her patients with the same smooth skills that made her become such a valuable member of the Cross-Country world - with stethoscope and oximeter instead of skis and poles in her hands.

The article, interviewed by Paolo Romano, pays tribute to an athlete who can look back on a outstanding career. A career that was shaken by a mountain bike accident in 2009 and the sudden passing of her brother at the start of  the Olympic Winter Games in 2014. Life events, that still never made Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen loose her focus or values of Cross-Country skiing.

In company of her trusty little dog on a sunny afternoon in Holmenkollen, Astrid Urhenholdt Jacobsen joins us to look back on a career that abruptly ended six months ago on the same spot. Astrid looks happy and healthy. We ask her the name of her canine friend and she replies amused: “He is Dovre, like the Norwegian mountain range. He is very tame for a hunting dog but lately he is hunting only bees, rather than small preys."

With Holmenkollen's press office temporarily closed, Astrid suggests that we could move to the foot of Norwegians Royal Box to start our interview. No place could be more appropriate to philosophy about life. A noble place for a noble athlete like Astrid.

The whole world discovered a young Astrid Jacobsen during Sapporo 2007 World Championships. But what are your best memories before that golden sprint? In junior races or during your school years.
«In Heming IL we had many strong skiers when I was a teenager and I remember the Junior Norwegian Nationals in 2004 when all the podium was swept by the athletes of our ski club. I remember very well that race because all my training group were from this small area in Oslo and it has been really weird that we beated all the other girls coming from the whole Norway. And at the Nationals Champs here in Norway there are always a lot of skiers. But I remenber also my first time I did the senior Nationals in January 2005 in Lillehammer in which I was second behind Marit Bjørgen. That sprint classical race was my first FIS competition and in qualification I started last because my ranking was bad. But I was able to finish in third position and in the final only Marit was able to beat me. That race was the last trial for the Oberstdorf World Championships but the Norwegian Federation said that I was just a kid and too young to compete at senior level internationally. And the same thing happened the year after when I finished third at the Nationals but again they said that I was too young for getting a spot for the Torino Olimpycs. With that generations of coaches you had to be in senior age to compete in international competition but then things changed with Therese Johaug, Marthe Kristoffersen and Ingvild Østberg or looking at our period with Helene Marie Fossesholm.»

During your career you got lots of medals during World Championships [10] but only one at the Olympics? Are there any particular reasons for that?
«About my first Olympic Games in Vancouver, I had a dramatic crash with my mountain bike the previous summer. Someone said that I wouldn’t raced anymore, but getting the qualification for Vancouver has been one of the best performance in my career, because on July 1th I had to wear a corsette that I kept until end of August because of the many fractures. Just being able to ski again that winter was a victory. I still can’t really understand how I was able to ski as good as I did. Of course I think without the crash things probably would have been different. In Sochi has been a sum of multiple bad events started with the tragic fact occured to my brother. Then when coach picked the team for the skiathlon I wasn’t selected and this has been really weird to me because I was really consistently strong the whole season in that format. I think with the coach of that time we were not best friend. When I raced the sprint It was really emotional to me but during the final I broke my pole and finished fourth. About the 10 km classic and relay we had really bad skis. But in Sochi I was in really good shape before starting that games. Sochi 2014, Falun WCH 2015 and Lahti WHC 2017 have been the events in which I had the best shape. When I left Sochi I was confident that I was the best athlete without a medal. I don’t have a good feeling with the Olympics because the same misfortune happened in Pyeongchang when I got flu just before we started. Then I won gold in relay but that wasn’t my best day, maybe they paid me back for the unlucky past.__»

Many ski analyst and commentators s****ay that you have the best classic style in last three or four decades. Did you work a lot to get that armonic and so poetic gesture as part of your technique?
«Yes, I worked a lot with my technique and for me it’s like a sort of dancing with skiis_. I love the feeling when you_ do the diagonal stride in a proper snow-covered track_.  Because now in modern C__ross-Country__, they ski like machines and I don’t really like it, okay maybe it’s fast. If we_ could take back the tracks as they were in the past with the difference in height changing all the times instead of what we have now when practically all World  Cup tracks have a hill, a flat and followed by downhill. We need tracks in which it’s possible to follow the rythm of your floating to get the feeling of terrain who must be always changing. That is my favourite thing in ski when it makes you flow on snow and thats why I used so much time trying to improve my technique to try to reach the perfection in it. When you get this part of floating it’s kind of you get your speed with you. I think I was always more focused of the part of sport which considers improving, working on technique and doing things over and over to get this feeling of mastering it and that has probably been more important to me then just winning a race and that i__s why some people may say:” Ok you ski beautifully but you didn’t make you win”, but it’s also a part of the sport to be able to master it.__»

What has been your best race in your career? Or the race that gave you most satisfaction letting you to affirm : “That was my day !”
«I have two races in Falun that I remember very well. The first one was in 2008 in skiathlon that historically has been my least favourite race but that day I could ski for the whole day long. We were all Norwegians on top position before the last lap, then on top of Mö__rdanbakken remained only me and Marit and I remember that one of my coach told me:“ Astrid you can calm down now, you have another race tomorrow!” and I watched him in a strange way doesn’t understand__ing the reason. But that was one of my strongest days, I felt in a super shape there. But maybe the race that means the most to me personally is another skiathlon in Falun during World Championships 2015. Because after Sochi and what has happened to my brother, I compensate__d that fact dedicating my thought only on training during summer because that was the only way to make me feel a bit Ok. But all that work caused in my body to shoot down working from August until Christmas and in the rest of the team they thought “Ok, Astrid is out of the team, she will not come back this season”. But then suddendly I started skiing again and in one month I went from being a total disaster and someone that other people didn’t count to get a spot in Norge squad for the World Championships despite the hard fight that is always present in out team selection, to a podium’s athlete_. The first race in Falun was the skiathlon and getting silver medal has been a great victory to me rethinking to the previous difficult year. That was a year in which I learned most personally, Skiing was just not sport anymore, it was more__»__._

Did you have any special rituals on race day?
«Not really. The only ritual I had if we can call ritual was the food that I could eat or not the day before or if doing little training the morning if race was in the afternoon. I think one of my strenght is that I knew what was important and what was not, and rituals wasn’t because they are only rituals. So if something unplanned happened before the race I loved that because people always got stressed because of that but for me it was Ok even if they changed format from classic to skating the evening before I stayed calm. I always stayed calm_, that was my best quality. So the more_ the stress, better for me.__»

What do you miss most about cross-country right now ?
«I miss my teammates, coaches and everyone working around Cross-Country. I miss the flexibility in daily schedule we have that is different from working. And I miss my best shape that now is not that good. Now I do my training when I got motivation.

While I don’t miss all training camps abroad or doing two hard sessions a day or follow a date alimentary regime making following to my family my training hour and my fixed schedule, too .__»

How do you define yourself as a girl outside cross-country**? What kind of character do you have ?**
«I like people, and as a best quality I think I am quite good at taking different perspectives. I don’t always have my own perspective, I can see that there are two, three, four different ways to see things which make easier to understand other people and their perspectives. My other quality that I used in Cross-Country too is to remain calm. I think I usually see the best in people, I am quite naive and I think people have the good intentions until proved otherways. I am a bit impatient and efficient, so I expect others to be the same and expect others to be doing their best which is probably annoying for others around me. I probably think the best in people but I expect a lot from them.__»

You have been studying medicine in last six years. What are gonna be your perspectives in that field in future ?
«I have got one year left before I become a Doctor. Then I will do internship that is one and a half year, a work position allocated to young Doctors and then you start specializing. I am not really sure what direction I am gonna do but this summer I am working in a female clinic where they follow everything from birth to post partum in gynecologist branch which is really interesting. I am not sure what kind of specializing I want to choose, the only thing I kwow is that I want to choose a branch where there i__s possibility for learning the whole way to a working career. I want to specialize where you don’t start with something broad and then you specialize with something small like orthopedics.That’s not my kind. I wanna be a generalist, so maybe gynecologist, maybe intensive medicine or trauma, or maybe general doctor. We have a great health system in Norway, I really look forward to be able to work and be part of our system. I really like that we have this social platform with the same treatment for everyone in which it doesn’t matter if you are rich or poor. We have the same health system for everyone.__»

Why is it so difficult in the world of wintersport to combine success in sport and university at the same time? Only a few athletes do it both in recent years ?
«Regarding my personal case I wouldn’t be a Doctor if the National team or my U__niversity wouldn’t be flexible with their schedules. I have had some years in which I had really strict programs. If you are in National team you have to do this training camp, this race, this training in this place etc,  and the same being a medical student you have to do this exam, this course, this test etc. And all of them said to me: “we love if you do both sport and medicine studying, that is a really good thing!“ and I said it doesn’t matter if you love this if you don’t help me. I never asked my University or National team to skip things, I just needed to move my schedule in time because it’s not that easy to do both of them or being in two places at the same time. This is one of my goal for the future, to make it easier to combine sport and study_. Because top athletes can still become "losers" in life._ Y__ou can be excellent in sport but then you get too old having no idea what you want to do in future. In society it’s better to create winners in life permitting to combine sports and school or work lifting them in the after sport career. That’s much better for the whole society. This is one of the very few good thing with the pandemic, forcing University to use more digital platforms, being possible to be located in different places but with wide possibility to learn at the same time.__»

Let's imagine that you are the supreme boss of the Cross-Country World Cup. What would you change? Build your own calender and rules or advice to bring back C****ross-Country to its ancient glory days.
«First I will cut the amount of races. I would stop being political correct and giving race to this and that. For example now Slovenia and other countries need some races, everyone needs World Cup races. But here at Holmenkollen, they constantly put artificial snow and fulfil the FIS required 12m wide and 30cm high tracks but we still travel to places and find stones and grass on the race course.
I would start in having less weekends, starting stages on Friday in the evening with Sprint in prime time when people have finished work. And then Distance races on Saturday and Sunday, doing three weekend in a row and then a break. Other important things is using quality and traditional locations, not always the same but locations who have something important to offer. And if you fail once offering bad show you are out of the World Cup.»

You say following the IBU program?
«Yes, sort of with the weekend break system but I don’t like competing on W__ednesday or Thursday. World C__up calendar needs less weekends and less traveling. When Bente Skari won her last World Cup in 2003 she won 14 out of 17 World Cup races in which she started, in a total of 21 World Cup races in program, and it was 2003, less then twenty years ago and now there are so much.__»

Some survey revealed a certain loss in Cross-Country’s practise in Norway in favour of other sports  between young generations. What is your thought about it and your suggestion to Norway Ski Association to limit this loss of enthusiasm in future kids?
«That’s probably because we recently had winters with less snow in the south of Norway. This could be an easy answer the lack of snow on winters. Nice winters and nice tracks can attract more young generations in doing Cross-Country and having fun. But in Norway in junior races there are still more and more skiers. The loss of practicing in under 14 could be temporarily, Of course one other reason is due to cost of materials. Being active in youth races already requires too much equipment too early. This high cost cause a loss in recruiting kids.__»

What is there in your future wish list?
«Good question! Maybe to have my own kids (haha). That would be the most obviuos one. I don’t need much. I’d like to have a job that I find interesting and stay healthy.»