TRONDHEIM, NORWAY — Johannes Høsflot Klæbo, the Norwegian gold-medal winner of all six competitions at this year’s World Championships here, was refreshingly blunt when asked about his plans to celebrate.
“You need to remember that I’m allergic to gluten, so I don’t drink much beer,” he told an audience of reporters at a news conference following his last race. But, he added: “If you ask me about vodka-Red Bull, it’s a little bit different.”
The 28-year-old went on to describe his monk-like lifestyle in the leadup to the highlight of his career: a World Championships in his home city.
Traveling with his manager-father 150 days a year. No partying since last spring. Two-and-a-half months eating chicken and rice.
“I have really been putting all the energy into these six races,” Klæbo said. “So, I think I will find something else to eat, and I will find something else than water to drink.”
I didn’t think much more about those comments until 9:45 p.m. that evening, when I was walking to the tram home from a (single, non-alcoholic) beer with some friends in Solsiden, a trendy Trondheim neighborhood of shops and bars in a redeveloped shipyard.
Half a block into my walk, I recognized a Norwegian reporter, posing for a portrait on a dimly lit pedestrian bridge over the harbor — a decidedly strange image for a Saturday night. Herman told me that Klæbo’s publicist had informed him and a few other Scandinavian reporters of the location of the victory party. And he and his photographer were testing the lighting while they waited for Klæbo’s arrival at 10 p.m.
I quickly checked the tram schedule: There was another one in an hour. So I decided to stick around for what was starting to feel like a bit of a stakeout in front of Søstrene Karlsen — a club that, one of the reporters told me, is a hangout for Trondheim finance bros and, occasionally, some celebrities.
A thudding bass line played from the second floor; 50 sharply dressed Norwegians waited for a bouncer to let them in.
“The drunkest one is up there already,” one of the reporters said, pointing to a second floor balcony where Erik Valnes, one of Klæbo’s medal-winning Norwegian teammates, swayed unsteadily.
While we waited, I discussed the post-championships party vibe with the assembled Scandinavian press corps, which numbered about a dozen. One of them, whose newspaper forbids him from being quoted by name, told me that he completely understood why the athletes would want to unplug after the races, which had drawn wall-to-wall media coverage and tens of thousands of Norwegian fans.
“So much adrenaline, so much running through their head for so long. It’s best to just get drunk and not think about anything,” the reporter told me. “Think about the pressure they’ve been under.”
A few minutes later, Klæbo’s father, Haakon, arrived, looking ebullient in jeans and a puffy blue Craft jacket. Then came a group of former Norwegian superstars: retired Olympic gold medalist Martin Johnsrud Sundby looking dapper in a black felt jacket; marathon racer-turned TV commentator Fredrik Aukland.
But, as the clock ticked past 10:30, still no Klæbo — even as the crowd of waiting reporters grew.
The Scandinavian press follows cross-country skiing with a fervor much like the American media’s enthusiasm for professional football, and the end-of-season athlete celebration is a subplot that draws particular fascination.
Norwegian and Swedish athletes seem to be an especially hard-partying bunch, as do the Brits.
“I’m going to find some beer and drink a lot of it,” Andrew Musgrave, a United Kingdom skier, told the Swedish tabloid Expressen after his last race of the championships.
A Haitian skier, Stevenson Savart, even stopped on the side of the trail in the middle of Saturday’s men’s 50-kilometer event to take a drink from a beer offered by fans, then dropped out of the race.
Not everyone on the World Cup circuit, though, was ready to let loose, with members of the U.S. team in Trondheim exercising notable restraint.
“This is the extent of the partying,” American Gus Schumacher, 24, said Sunday, holding the single empty can of the beer he consumed while watching the last event of the championships, the women’s 50-kilometer race. His teammate, Luke Jager, said his primary method of celebration was playing three hours of a video game, Call of Duty.
“Right now, all I can think about is laying in bed,” an exhausted Julia Kern, one of Schumacher’s teammates, said just after finishing the 50-kilometer event. Heavy drinking, she added, seemed off the table. “I’ve been having really tricky stomach issues, so I can’t even fathom putting anything like that in my body right now,” she said. “I’m so far gone that it’s not even appetizing at this point.”
Kern said she didn’t have time to celebrate her silver medal earlier in the week that she won in the team sprint event, where she was paired with U.S. star Jessie Diggins.
“You don’t really have time. You get funneled from media to straight to the awards ceremony,” she said. “I think we really had our eye on all the future competitions to come.”
Kern said she does hope to take time to commemorate the medal with Diggins, likely with some non-alcoholic ginger beer, in the coming week.
But the Norwegians wasted no time in moving on to the stronger stuff.
Just before 11 p.m. Saturday, Klæbo finally showed up at Søstrene Karlsen, arriving on foot with his girlfriend, Pernille Døsvik.
There were screams from the assembled crowd; the scramble for photos was so intense that a reporter got knocked over into a fence.
Klæbo and Døsvik were allowed to cut the line and were shown inside. A few seconds later, they emerged, led by Valnes, on a staircase leading to the second floor. A door opened, they entered, and a few seconds later, a huge cheer erupted.
That was all the reporters would get. Except for me.
The next morning, I awoke to a selfie sent by one of the friends I was staying with.
They’re a group of avid ski fans who traveled to Trondheim that I’ve been referring to as the “unleashed dads” of Anchorage. Unbeknownst to me, one of them, Andrew Kastning, had gained entrance to the club and, in the early hours of Sunday morning, had captured a dimly lit photo of himself with Klæbo just over his shoulder.
On my way out of the house and up to the competition venue for the women’s 50-kilometer race, I busted into Kastning’s room, where he was still groggily tucked under a duvet. He recounted his time at the club, where he’d arrived with some Norwegian friends he made during Saturday’s race.
“I didn’t know where they were taking me, really. But then we showed up and Jan Thomas Jenssen was there,” Kastning said, referring to one of the Norwegian competitors at the championships. “And then they all just started rolling in.”
What was your feeling? I asked him.
“About being there, in the scene of greatness? It was fucking amazing,” Kastning said. “It was so goddamn cool. I had to snap a fan selfie just to make sure I remembered it.”
As for Klæbo? The hero of Norway was “less excited than I would be if I’d won six gold medals,” Kastning said. Sober, with some smiles at times.
Valnes was perhaps having a little more fun. Kastning said his new Norwegian friend, Sondre Elvebakk, had dressed up as Valnes — wearing a hat from the skier’s hometown of Tromsø, with a vest and a speed suit.
As Elvebakk was asserting his feigned identity to a woman at the club, Valnes himself “rolled right around the corner.”
“I’m like, ‘Sondre might have a problem here,’” Kastning said. “The real Erik Valnes just stood up.”
Nathaniel Herz
Nat Herz is an Alaska-based journalist who moonlights for FasterSkier as an occasional reporter and podcast host. He was FasterSkier's full-time reporter in 2010 and 2011.
