Hanna Öberg is a Swedish female biathlete. In 2017 she won the IBU Female Rookie of the Year Award for her World Cup debut season. At the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics she won gold in the Individual, after four clean shootings. She also claimed silver in the Relay. At the 2019 Biathlon World Championships on home snow in Östersund, where she again won the individual with a perfect shoot. She became the first female biathlete to win the individual World Championship title the year after taking the Olympic individual gold.
She was awarded the Svenska Dagbladet Gold Medal in early-December 2018 and the Jerring Award in January 2019. In June 2019, it was announced she had been awarded the Victoria Award.
Women Fitness President Ms. Namita Nayyar had a candid interview with Hanna Öberg, Swedish female biathlete, she is Olympic Gold Medalist and World Champion where she talks about her workout, hair & skin care secrets and about her exceptional achievements in the sporting world.
Namita Nayyar:
You are the first female biathlete to win the individual World Championship title the year after taking the Olympic individual gold. Walk us through your spectacular journey and share what appeals to you the most about the sport? Also, when did it all began that you wanted to take up this sport as a career option?
Hanna Oberg:
I’ve always done sports. I got my first cross-country skis on my two year birthday so skiing has always been part of my life. Besides from skiing have I also did other sports as little such as soccer, track and field and orienteering before I found biathlon at the age of 10. I continued doing several sports until I started in Gymnasium (High School) were I chose Biathlon as alignment. Therefore I also moved 400km away from home at the age of 15. It was an easy choice for me at the time; I knew this was what I wanted to do. I went four years at the Gymnasium and developed pretty much during those years, mostly I learned a bit of what it takes to become a world-class athlete through attending international competitions such as Junior World Championships.
By the time I was in my last year at the school I got taken in to the Swedish National Team in Biathlon. This was huge for me then. To have the opportunity to take part in camps with the best biathletes in Sweden was very inspiring and the progress continued. The year after that I’d graduated school Wolfgang Pichler came in as a coach for the Swedish team. In biathlon he is a real legend, known as a devils coach because of his insane training programs. During my first year of Wolfgangs training I developed most of my values from our physical tests with between 15-20%, that’s extra ordinary! This was my last winter as a junior and at my last Junior World Championships in 2016 I took two gold medals and a silver medal becoming the most successful Swedish junior until then.
Moving up as a senior the next winter I did my first whole World Cup season which was very instructive with pretty varied results. My best results were 5th and 7th but I also had some results outside of top 60. I did my first World Championships in 2017 without any special results. Then the 17/18 season came, with the big goal of PyeongChang 2018 Olympics. Before the Olympics I’d had a difficult season with a lot of sickness and missed races but when I finally came to Korea I was in really good shape, both physically and mentally. In the initial races I was 5th and 7th, equally with the best I’ve ever done before, but I knew that I could perform even better. In the Individual I put up a perfect race. I hit 20/20 shots on the range and I skied faster than never done before resulting in a shocking Olympic Champion title. I mean, I’d never even been on the podium in a World Cup before. It was an unreal feeling and situation for me.
Coming in to the World Championships in Östersund 2019 I’d had a good season with some podium places so the focus and expectations on me from the surroundings and media was much higher than the year before. I learnt that a championship on home soil is a special thing. Before the individual competition was I number 4 in the sprint less than a second behind bronze and number 5 in the pursuit. I’d had some good chances to medal before this, for me, very special competition. If it was a special feeling winning the Olympic gold, this world champion title was also very special but in a different way. For me personally it was bigger to win the second gold. To be able to bring home a gold medal to the home crowd in front of friends and family and accomplish this once again perfect race with 20/20. I remember thinking, coming in to the last shooting, let’s show who the Olympic Champion is.
Full Interview is Continued on Next Page
This interview is exclusive and taken by Namita Nayyar President womenfitness.net and should not be reproduced, copied or hosted in part or full anywhere without an express permission.
All Written Content Copyright © 2020 Women Fitness
Namita Nayyar:
Biathlon requires a lot of strength, stamina, and strategy. Give us five tips that are absolutely necessary to follow to excel in this sport and handle stress?
Hanna Oberg:
It’s really important to stay calm and keep focused on what you have to do. So what I do when I come in to the range in a competition is to prepare myself and my weapon for the shooting. I slow down my pace on the skis just bit. I search for changes in the outer conditions such as wind. I choose a lane for myself to do the shooting on. I open the snow shields I have on the weapon. I arrive at the mat and I tell myself to take one shot at a time. This is something I do every single time I’m shooting.
Namita Nayyar:
Introduce us to a day in your life. One thing you begin your day with.
Hanna Oberg:
I always start my day with a hearty breakfast. At the moment I’m all into oat porridge which I do in different variations. For example with banana, egg, nuts and berries. After I had my breakfast I do my morning session which normally is some sort of endurance training, either intervals or a longer easier session. I have lunch, take a nap, and have a snack and then the afternoon session. Often gym and a recovery run before I end the day with dinner.
Namita Nayyar:
Five exercises that essentially comprise your workout routine that you may like to share, both strength & flexibility? The therapy you undertake to prevent injury or overcome it?
Hanna Oberg:
Besides all the endurance training I do like cross country skiing, roller skiing, running, biking and so on I also do an important part of my training in the gym to build strength. So here are some of my favourite strength/stability/flexibility exercises:
- Barbell Complex variations. I do 6 reps of 5 different movements in one serie. It’s a great full body exercise that i normally do as part of the warm up.
- Dead lift.
- Pull-ups. It took some years of practice before I could do my first pull-up without help. And now I’m up at 14 as a PB, it was a great feeling breaking the barrier of making one. It’s a good upper body exercise which you can alternate on how you strong you are, either you use an elastic band for help or you put on some extra weight if it’s too easy without.
- Thoracic rotations. It’s important to keep flexibility in the back to be able to do all other exercises in full movement.
- Foam rolling for flexibility, especially important on the legs, at least for me.
Having to train
Namita Nayyar:
constantly in extreme weather conditions, how do you take care of your skin and hair?
Hanna Oberg:
I have dry skin and my curly hair is as well dry so for me is it really important to use good products that moisture, especially in the winter when the air outside is extra dry. Another example is that I only wash my hair 1-2 times a week! I don’t want to dry it out and it doesn’t really get greasy either.
Namita Nayyar:
“PyeongChang was a fantastic experience for me – to be a part of that Olympic Games and to be able to perform and win medals. Now I’ll continue to work hard to be able to perform in the next Olympic Games (at Beijing 2021) too, but there’s still some time to go.” In the current pandemic situation, how are you training while staying at home?
Hanna Oberg:
In Sweden we never really had a full shut down so I have actually been able to do most of training as normal. What’s different tough is that we don’t have any camps with the national team. As far by now we have cancelled all our camps until August and we don’t know if we can have camps even by then at the moment. Normally we one camp every month outside of Sweden for between 7-20 days. So the situation at the moment is that I can train everything I want and need to but I have to do it at home and not travel away for change of scenery.
This interview is exclusive and taken by Namita Nayyar President womenfitness.net and should not be reproduced, copied or hosted in part or full anywhere without an express permission.
All Written Content Copyright © 2020 Women Fitness