Better and better day by day!

Well, it went pretty well! I went down in the pool, laid down on my back and and slowly started to swim. My knee hurt but I continued to swim. The advantage of back swimming is that if it hurts, you can just stop moving and float instead. But the swimming facilities here in town has terribly cold water so lay still isn’t really an option, therefor I continued to the other side at leisurely pace and then back. After 100 m it didn’t hurt more anyway so I continued 100 m. After 500 m I didn’t dare to swim anymore. First try.

You think a lot when you swim. A memory popped up in my mind, I stood there on the podium 20 year old and received the gold medals. I had achieved two world records as well; 25 m and 50 m butterfly. I’m not really a competing person, it just happened. In the spring that same year I swam in the Swedish Championship for the first time in my life. I had not realized that it was the SM I was going to compete in. I was just so excited to go to Stockholm, the capital! So great! But I took some medals and then the national team coaches saw me and suddenly I was in the national team. My whole life changed. I started to train five times a week instead of one, I had to quit all other activities and completely devote all my free time to swimming. It was fun in the beginning. We got to go to training camps and competitions here and there. During the summer I impatiently waited for the letter to reveal where in the world I would go to the World Championship. The letter finally arrived and told me that 1986 World Championship would be held in… Gothenburg!!! I thought I’d get the chance to go to the other side of the earth. But the 1,5 hour drive west still gave me an amazing experience! And the world records, they still remain today.