Biathlete Emil Hegle Svendsen (NOR) logged 103 training hours in June.
The upcoming race season includes Biathlon World Championships on home turf in Oslo, Norway, and Emil Hegle Svendsen plans to be in the shape of his life for the event, which takes place in Holmenkollen from March 3 to 13, 2016.
Along with the rest of the Norwegian National team, Hegle Svendsen capped off the month of June with a big training camp in Torsby, Sweden. To this point in his career, the 29-year-old biathlete has never trained more in June. At the end of the day on June 30, Hegle Svendsen had logged 103 training hours for the month.
“Cresting 100 training hours was an important milestone for me. For a biathlete, that is a significant volume, given that we do a lot of shooting practice on top of that, which also takes a lot of time and energy,” Hegle Svendsen says to Norwegian TV station NRK.
And while the World Championship on home turf is a powerful motivator for Helge Svendsen, he points out that there is more to the season than 10 days in March.
“For me, the most important thing is to consider the season as a whole. But the World Championship is a carrot at the end of the season,” Hegle Svendsen says, adding that he is more motivated than ever.
At his home in Oslo, Hegle Svendsen has posted a picture. It’s not a photo of his main competitor. It’s a photo of himself, taken during a World Cup race this winter that he considers his worst performance in years.
“I hope I never will race like that again. This photo motivates me to put in the hours this summer and fall,” Hegle Svendsen says.