Winter sports has lost three of its greatest athletes in less than one week. I was more emotional than I thought I would be about Bjørndalen. Then, before I was even done processing that, Marit Bjørgen announced her retirement. Perhaps I wasn’t entirely unprepared for that, but it was still heartbreaking to me as a fan. Emil’s retirement today, though? For me this is perhaps the hardest one to deal with, because I have always been his fan, throughout his career. He has always been my special boy at biathlon, he was the reason I cared about something during some tough and depressing times in my life where I basically just made it through days and weeks by focusing on when he would race next. He has always meant a lot to me, for more reasons than purely what he did on the track. In recent years, my love for him has probably been calmer and more quiet, but he always had a big place in my sports heart. And he always will have. Today I cried with him in front of my TV, just like I did that day in Östersund 2008 when he beat Bjørndalen on the home stretch for his first World Championship title on the senior level. Different kinds of tears, but still such a strong manifestation of feelings and love.
Thank you, Emil. A little piece of my heart will be yours, forever.
