Moa Lundgren, 28, and Gustav Kvarnbrink, 26, exchanged cross-country skis for hyrox.
The move made them World Cup silver medalists.
– It was surreal, says Lundgren.
It’s almost as if you can hear on the other end of the phone that the Swedish cross-country skiing star is smiling when she talks.
On May 23, the ski couple did their first hyrox competition together. Less than a month later, on June 21, they were on the starting line in their second ever hyrox competition, at the WC that took place over the weekend in the Strawberry arena in Solna.
52.03 minutes later they ran first across the finish line, with a new Swedish record.
But the cheer soon got stuck in his throat.
“Extremely”
Only after the finish line does the pair learn that a referee has noticed a rule error somewhere during the competition, and they are therefore penalized with a 15-second time extension. It cost them the gold.
– It’s a judging sport, but it was super, super hard in that we lost the victory on it even though we were first over the line. We heard that we were given a warning, but we didn’t know until we went to the goal that we had been punished, Lundgren says and continues:
– I think it was extremely, extremely hard because we were so careful after the warning and I really went to the side and just looked at Gustav.
Here’s how a hyrox race goes:
1 kilometer run followed by 1 strength exercise, which is repeated 8 times. In total, you run 8 kilometers and do 8 exercises.
All races contain the same 8 exercises in the following order:
Source: stc.se
During Monday, the disappointment still had time to turn into joy.
– I am impressed and proud of us that we have just gone out and driven and dared to test this and pretend it was fun. And that we took the Swedish record, and set a new personal best.
Next year the hyrox WC will be held in Hong Kong. But for Lundgren’s part, the hyrox investment is over for this year. Instead, she is looking towards the World Ski Championships in Falun in 2027.
