Took fire: – Many questions

Johannes Høsflot Klæbo has put one of his best seasons behind him. Despite two periods of illness during the season, the star took 16 individual World Cup victories.

He also finished second overall in the World Cup, and wreaked havoc on the WC trails in Granåsen.

Now the focus has turned to the two most important seasons of the career: the WC on home ground in 2024 and a subsequent Olympic season.

Before last season, Klæbo said no to the national team. The announcement came after six months of speculation, grumbling, conflict and reports in the media.

This year, the message was simple: Things must be resolved sooner.

And two weeks ago, Klæbo and the Ski Association announced that he is a national team runner for the next two seasons.

While speculation about the future of the national team raged, Klæbo escaped abroad with partner Pernille Dosvik. He returned with a new plan – she returned with a full inbox.

Because where had they really gone?

– I have been to Athens. On Easter Saturday we sat down to see where the best weather was reported. We considered being here, but bad weather was reported. In Athens it was reported to be 25 degrees, so we got on the plane and went there.

– You wanted to keep it a secret?

– No, I hadn’t thought about it, but I hadn’t geotagged it, explains Klæbo.

And that led to a series of questions:

– It was the lady (Pernille) who said it. She had been getting so many questions on Instagram about where we were. It is Pernille who has been responsible for all of this. If I had been on holiday alone, I would have been at the hotel every day. She, on the other hand, looks for nice places. That place there was two and a half minutes from the hotel.

And with the holiday purchase there were also several pictures of Klæbo shirtless. It has caused reactions:

– I have to take advantage of it now while I’m well trained. We are done with the season now, and the off-season can be hard, so we have to take care to take the pictures while you are training, says Klæbo with a twinkle in his eye.

In the next few weeks, the 27-year-old will run several races in Norway, before he takes a holiday. May is so far almost without plans.

In recent years, Klæbo has had great success with high-altitude gatherings, and he expects that there will be around 100 high-altitude days in the upcoming WC season as well.

It was also a demand Klæbo had in the negotiations with the Ski Association:

– Being allowed to do the height bit that I want to do was the most important thing. We have achieved that in a good way now. The last two seasons have been the best of my career. I have made great strides in distance, and still good to maintain the quality in sprints. For me, the height bit is important. Then I know that others have other opinions. That’s fine, says Klæbo.

In recent seasons, the skier has taken the first summit in the USA, preferably already at the end of June or July.

This year it will be postponed:

– It won’t actually be until August. If you get a round of illness in the spring, I feel that you are not trained well enough in July. It’s a bit like timing it, so that you don’t get too many days in the lowlands either. We have found August works fine.