Ski coach Glenn Lindholm has highly qualified co-workers whose names he is not allowed to reveal. As much as a 25-page contract to coach Chinese also tells him what he can talk about. “I can have a departure even tomorrow,” he says.
Breakfastfirst workout, lunch, rest, second workout, dinner, then reading or spinning online – and go to bed.
Sound from a credible racing athlete’s day program.
Such were the ski coach Glenn Lindholmin days in the summer of 2021.
“Training came two and a half hours a day. I haven’t trained so regularly in a long time, ”says 50-year-old Lindholm.
Lindholm followed the daily program described above for a total of 28 days while in a corona quarantine in two Chinese hotel rooms.
Lindholm started coached by China Winter Sports last summer. His first trip to China began with a two-week quarantine in Shanghai. Then there was 1,500 miles of sky ride north and there another two-week quarantine set.
In his hotel room Lindholm was able to take a dozen steps before the wall came up. He jogged or walked back and forth across the room to a maximum distance of 15 kilometers. In addition, he did a fitness circuit on the floor.
Food was brought three times a day behind the door, and fever was measured at the door twice a day. Every third day was a corona test.
This occurred at a time when no one knew anything about the susceptible omicron transformation of the coronavirus yet.
“Yes, there was a turning back and forth in that carving, and it started with the guy in his fifties getting a little on his knees, but nothing at all. Sweat flowed, and I had fun. However, it was not a very sensible activity. It still made me feel good to be able to move. ”
Glenn Lindholm conducts coaching programs for 11 athletes independently. At the end of the week, reports will be written about all the exercises and athletes. Lindholm has two assistant coaches in Vuokatti, one from Estonia and the other from Russia.
When quarantined, Lindholm worked for more than three months with the Chinese cross-country ski team, including the Beijing Olympics, Inner Mongolia, and the training center, which he considers great.
“There is no such good training center for skiing in Europe. There is everything you need at an altitude of 1,500 to 1,700 meters. Good terrain and suitably cool weather in summer. There are 25 kilometers of roller coasters, and you can run anywhere because there is a lawn everywhere. The ski tube is two kilometers long and certainly the best in the world, ”Lindholm lists.
While it has never been possible to know what the next day will bring when it comes and whether it will continue to wash, Lindholm is very pleased with his decision to accept a job offer to China last spring.
“In no school could I have learned as much as a coach like this year.”
China’s In addition to Lindholm, the cross-country team has included coaches from Norway, Russia, Estonia and the United States.
“There are four Olympic winners sitting at the lunch table. One has worked for years Alexander Bolshunov with and another Johannes Høsflot Klæbon with high school. A former Norwegian maintenance manager is also present. If you don’t learn anything from it, you are either stupid or not interested in your work. ”
Lindholm can’t tell me more who the coaches are. Their names must not be revealed.
“My employment contract is 25 pages long, and it says pretty much what you can and can’t tell.”
However, Lindholm can say thatthat in China the investment in top sports is more professional than in Finland.
“This is the case in all sports. Athletes are professionals and have a pretty good monthly salary. The level of requirements is different than in Finland, for example. In China, a lot is required of athletes and coaches. Every workout will be recorded and the videos will be forwarded. The control is so huge. ”
Prior to the agreement with China, Lindholm worked as a women’s coach on the Finnish cross-country team. In China, he has been responsible for coaching the youngest skiers on the national team. He calls 11 groups of young skiers the third in the national team.
“Both effectively and quantitatively, more and harder training is practiced than in Finland, but China lacks a ski culture, and it loses quite a bit.“
Best the thing about skiing in China, according to Lindholm, at the moment is that there is limitless potential for high-end athletes. Almost all of the current national team skiers have switched from other sports.
“For example, in my own group, these sports include judo, boxing, rowing, kayaking, biking, endurance running. All the athletes on the cross-country team are really talented in sports. It is ahead of Finland. But the skiing background is still so short. Most have only started sometime three years ago, so there is still a long way to go. ”
“If we could continue with these, there would definitely be good results. At the 2026 Olympics, China may already be a big ski country. ”
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“Those four who compete in the Olympics would certainly be among the top ten in the World Championships.”
According to Lindholm, the skiers of the national team were recruited five years ago from sports schools.
“They had some kind of roller skating tests to get an idea of how they can handle skis. Oxygen uptake has only been measured later, and there are international readings. ”
According to Lindholm, China always invests in the performance technology of the sport.
“It’s started, and it’s put in order first, whatever the species. The technology of the skiers is already at a good level, yes we can do it. There are shortcomings in the muscle endurance required for this sport to be able to ski for a long time, an hour or two. Attempts are being made to develop it. That is why we practice very much.”
China’s there are a total of 35 athletes on the cross-country teams, of which four women and four men will compete in the Olympics according to the land quota.
Athletes led by Lindholm are aiming for the Youth World Championships in Norway at the end of February, in which 16 athletes have been entered.
“We have a good women’s team. The four who compete in the Olympics would certainly be among the top ten in the Finnish Championships, ”Lindholm measures the level of the Chinese compared to Finland.
Last winter, the best Chinese woman placed sixth in the five-kilometer (v) race for under-20s at the World Championships in Youth in Vuokatti. He stayed medal for ten seconds and left behind all four Finns.
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“Everything can happen and happen at any time. I can also leave tomorrow. ”
Glenn Lindholm was supposed to be present at the Beijing Olympics, but he stayed in Vuokatti to train his own group for the World Cup.
Glenn Lindholm says he has been in China for quite a few decades. When considering job offer received he notices human rights violations in the country. Related news coverage, he says followed closely.
“I have never really seen or encountered any indication of human rights violations. It is difficult to approach an issue about which nothing is known. That way, however, it was easy to leave. ”
“Now that I’ve been there, I’ve had a dozen athletes from Xinjiang Province. At least on the national team, they are treated really well, even better than other Chinese, ”says Lindholm.
Xinjiang Province has been in a lot of news in recent years. The province is home to the majority of China’s Uighur minority, more than ten million people.
According to human rights organizations, the media and researchers, Chinese state authorities have closed hundreds of thousands or even a million Uighurs in prison camps in Xinjiang. The camps have also been called forced labor camps.
Human rights organizations have called China’s actions for ethnic cleansing, several countries, such as the United States, genocide. In November, the NGO The Uyghur Tribunal published documentsaccording to which the repression of the Uighurs has been perpetrated by the president ‘s top actors in the country Xi Jinping down to.
Lindholmin the employment contract expires after the olympics at the end of february.
“I have enjoyed in the job and learned a lot. I am now a coach at a different level than a year ago. ”
Lindholm admits to coaching Chinese hill jumpers Mika Kojonkoski the autumn surprise fires amazed.
“I already know so much about Chinese culture that anything can happen and happen at any time. I can have a departure even tomorrow. It’s the country’s way to go if the skis cross or something happens. I was already aware when I signed the contract that this could end at any time. ”
Lindholm says he gets his job In China, better compensation than in a similar position in Finland.
“But I didn’t go here for the money but for the experiences. I wanted to take Chinese skiing forward because I had seen the potential there before. ”
Glenn Lindholm
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Ski coach, 50 years old.
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Domiciled in Loviisa, also lives in Vuokatti.
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Married to former racing skier Johanna Lindholm (nee Ahlstrand). Five children, the first of whom Remi belongs to the Finnish Olympic team.
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Former national top skier, Finnish Championship bronze in 50 kilometers of skiing in 1996.
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Worked with his father as a fisherman, as the head coach and executive director of the Swedish-language ski association FSS, as a sports editor for Yle Sporten, as a Swedish-speaking expert for Yle, as the coaching coach of Vuokatti Sport, as the coach of the Chinese cross-country team
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