The final comma – NRK Sport – Sports news, results and broadcasting schedule
It is fundamentally risky to claim already in the title of a book that you must tell exactly “the whole story”.
The absolute does not exist in contexts. And both Therese Johaug and her co-author, NRK journalist and colleague Anders Skjerdingstad, know this well.
This is it subjective the story of threats, harrowing meetings and not least the purchase of lip creams in Northern Italy.
Dirty wings
The doping verdict will always be a burdensome part of the story of the skiing star from Dalsbygda in Østerdalen, because we are precisely talking about all the story.
Johaug is what in North Norwegian popular culture could be called a Angel with dirt on the wing.
That’s how brutal the sport is.
And Johaug tells with noticeable empathy about his part of the events, in a case that became a turning point in Norwegian skiing history, for bad and perhaps also good.
But there is still no anger to read from Johaug’s words.
And it’s actually a little surprising.
Because this is a case where the objective, i.e. the finding of the banned substance Klostebol, trumped the subjective, i.e. her lack of intention.
Then it would have been possible to hope for a greater degree of self-criticism – especially now that the athlete Therese Johaug has received her sporting vindication, not least through the individual Olympic golds, where she was still suspended in 2017.
Nevertheless – the verdict against her meant that our whole self-image as a skin nation had to be re-evaluated and matured. Apparently, so did the person Therese Johaug.
The person and the myth, nothing less.
Organic and sustainable
Ski pensioner Johaug gives a tour of behind the facade to the active ski star Johaug, who to many seemed excessively calculated, bordering on vocation at times.
A constant feeling of lines that have been pre-fabricated – and a smile that never reached the eyes.
Nothing is prefabricated in the background Therese from Johaugen tells about, from the family farm in Dalsbygda, from the barn, about care, about Christmas preparations or Grandma Mommo.
Everything is organic and sustainable to the highest degree.
But the road from there to really giving an understanding of who the myth Johaug really is is just as long as the one from the 18-year-old who takes a sensational WC bronze in 2007 to her who gets her final resurrection with the three Olympic golds in Beijing 15 years later.
Eat your food
Here we approach a much bigger picture.
In the chapter simply called «Eta mer!» she tells a hitherto unknown story about problems with eating enough.
About the advice from Professor Jorunn Sundgot Borgen about, among other things, weighing the food, which turned out to be wrong for skiers aged 17 or 18.
Johaug simply had to go on a diet, which eventually got her on the right track, also in terms of weight.
At the very last minute so as not to be denied skiing in the winter leading up to the WC at home in Holmenkollen in 2011.
Venninna Ingvild Flugstad Østberg is the one who has had to endure many heavy consequences of the same type of problems, also in public.
Only now do we learn how close it was that this story had been about Therese Johaug many years earlier.
Instead, Johaug’s further career ended up being defined by the mighty WC 30 kilometer gold in front of an ecstatic home crowd in Holmenkollen a few months later.
But the very strongest parts of Johaug’s story revolve around feelings other than the troubled relationship with food.
A boy called Sten Anders
In the autumn of 2012, she will have control over her food intake, she says.
And she “became acquainted with a boy called Sten Anders”.
Sten Anders is the younger brother of a teammate Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen – og has so far only been described as a close friend in public.
But which was much closer than that.
Therese now says that she and Sten Anders were lovers for almost a whole year.
But also the painful story of the grief and questions she and the rest of the environment left with after he took his own life before the start of the Olympics in Sochi in 2014.
A best friend named Ida
And the other poignant part of the story, the one about Ida Eide, venninna back from russetida, she Johaug went to Copenhagen to hear Coldplay in concert.
“Life is as short as snowfall”as they sing in a line of text reproduced in the book.
Ida Eide, who falls over and dies during the Norgesløpet at Jessheim autumn 2018, while Johaug prepares for the comeback championship in Seefeld a few months later.
And about a very special WC, where Ida’s little sister Mari Eide takes her first championship medal ever.
Therese Johaug herself takes three golds and once again shows her unique ability to live out of grief through physical performance, whether it’s in hill running or skiing.
“Ittje snu dej, Therese, it’s a solution to wear with strength”, as her father Thorvall is said to have advised her.
And this is also how the biographical version of Therese Johaug appears.
“The whole story” is the story of perhaps the greatest cross-country runner of all time.
And whether she tells much more about speaking up even before that remains an unanswered question.
Including what was actually in that text message from Petter Northug after their first meeting at Tynset.
Sometimes you actually have to be allowed to keep the whole secret.