If you're a fan of Swedish men's figure skating...

[siberia82]

Photo, page 56 (http://i51.tinypic.com/1io0v8.jpg):

SHIELDED. After his own performance in the finals, Adrian sits in the kiss and cry area where he follows Kristoffer's decisive skate on the screen.



Page 56 (continued):

The three national gold medal candidates have competed against each other throughout the season, but when they arrive at the Malmö ice stadium just over an hour before the short program, it is the first time that all three are at the same place. They handle this situation by staying as far from each other as possible.



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Adrian Schultheiss is reclined on a seat in the stands while his gaze seems lost in space. His green hat is pulled down over his eyebrows, and his cheeks are covered by the fur on his black down jacket. In a corridor at the other end of the arena, Kristoffer Berntsson's newly highlighted bangs sway across his forehead as he jogs back and forth with Iphone earphones in his ears. Further away, Alexander Majorov has distanced himself from his parents, who have his skates in a rolling luggage bag. Like other coaches, they always keep their skaters' equipment under supervision so that no one can sabotage anything.

Kristoffer, Adrian and Alexander don't even look at each other during the six-minute warm-up on the ice. After the two other skaters in the final group – who have virtually no chance of medalling – have skated, Adrian glides onto the ice again and assumes his start position near the blue line with his hands across his face. The ring in his lower lip and the sequins on his tight costume are glittering under the spotlight. He dances backwards, light on his feet, and nails a few difficult combinations*, but has a shaky landing on the triple Axel.

When Kristoffer Berntsson comes out on to the ice dressed as a pantomime artist, he hears the speaker announce Adrian's score: 69.67. He thinks he should be able to beat that if he does not make any mistakes.




* Someone needs to tell Mr. Almqvist that there is only one jump combination in the short program.

[siberia82]

Page 57 (continued):

Kristoffer starts with a clean triple Axel. He doesn't have the same ease as Adrian when he jumps. There is a thud on the ice when he lands, but he then performs a few practised jump combinations and gets 71.95 points.

From the kiss and cry – the area where the skaters sit while waiting for their scores – Kristoffer watches how a nervous Alexander Majorov begins with a challenging dance, but misses a triple Axel and a combination. After the short program, Majorov is third with 57.71 points.

Two days later, the competitors gather again at the Malmö ice stadium. Although they are staying at the same hotel, they have managed to avoid each other: they eat breakfast at different times and spend their practice-free hours in their rooms.

As Alexander Majorov walks on the ice in a homemade brown shirt with rivets and leather straps, Kristoffer is still jogging around in the corridor outside the changing room and listening to music. He doesn't see that Alexander is shivering when he takes his first steps on the ice, or that he stops by the boards and takes his father's hand to get some final instructions. When Kristoffer pulls the earphones out of his ears, he can hear Alexander receiving 129.13 points and realizes that he must have skated well, but the total will not be enough because he faltered in the short program.

While Adrian Schultheiss is standing by the boards, stomping his feet like an eager race horse, Kristoffer Berntsson is lacing up his skate boots in the changing room. He therefore doesn't see that Adrian's hair has been parted and fixed with hair spray in order to create a hairstyle that goes with the puffy-sleeved Romeo shirt. He doesn't need to look to know that Adrian has a planned quad toe loop as his first jump in the program. If he nails it, the final result will be more or less decided.

[siberia82]

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On the ice, Adrian opens his program with some spins. After 24 seconds, he speeds up, skates towards the boards and turns around. He takes two steps backwards and glides out on his right foot with his arms stretched out. After a turn, he bends his knees, does a final push and jumps up. One revolution. Two. Three. Four. A murmur is heard from the audience. But when Adrian's right skate hits the ice, he is leaning too much forwards. He falls and slides on his behind towards a City Gross advertisement on the boards before he gets up and lands five triple jumps.

When Kristoffer comes out of the changing room corridors and faces the spotlight in pinstriped pants and a matching vest, Adrian has just sat down in a chair in the kiss and cry area with his coaches.

"I missed it," he groans.

"Your weren't bad, Adrian," says coach Maria. "It was a good skate. The Lutz at the end was completely clean. And you looked happy. Calm."

The speaker announces that the judges agree with her: Adrian gets 129.20 points. This means that Kristoffer doesn't have room for any big mistakes.

He stands on the center circle with his hands shaped like guns against his cheek to resemble one of the gangsters in Michael Jackson's "Smooth Criminal" video.


Page 58 (http://i55.tinypic.com/2zs7148.jpg):

Kristoffer begins to dance at the first pulsating beats of the song. He feels heavy in his movements, and after his second jump, a triple toe loop, he puts his hands on the ice and is forced to speed up to be on time for his next jump, a triple Axel. This one also goes badly. He now thinks it's all over, but soon pushes the thought away. He suddenly nails three triples in a row, and when the musical medley changes to "Dirty Diana," the whole audience is clapping. After a few hip movements and a successful sit spin, he skates up to the head judge, grabs her table, looks her in the eyes and tosses his bangs. She tries to look unbribably severe, but the corners of her mouth betray her. Kristoffer then ends his program with two perfect double Axels.

[aemeraldrainc]

delete

[aemeraldrainc]

Ha ha ha, since when did I become the "expert" on Sweden's top male skaters? Honestly, I don't think I know that much about them; I just happen to keep an eye out for articles and interviews (and I don't necessarily find all of them).

To answer your question, I've been told by other fans that Adrian does have a Facebook account. I've never tried to find him on that site, though, since I'm "old-fashioned" like Nadine and prefer to send snail mail.


I will be posting the paragraphs I've been working on later tonight, in case anyone was curious.

I found his fb fan club page for anyone who'd like to join.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gi...7750795&v=wall

I found his personal account as well, but I don't think he adds just anyone so I'm not even going to try asking. I'm shy.

Anybody try looking for his twitter? Just curious.

[siberia82]

Page 58 (continued):

When he and Andrea are comfortably seated on each side of the little table with mandarins in the kiss and cry, the announcer says:

- The score for the last skater is ready. Kristoffer Berntsson from Landvetter figure skating club gets 132 points, giving him a total score of 205.31.

Kristoffer smiles and clenches his fists on his lap. The audience applauds and whistles. A bunch of screaming girls in pastel-coloured clothes is hanging over the rails with autograph books in their hands. A television team rushes up to him with a spotlight to interview the winner.

"It would be fantastic to go to Tokyo again and experience something like I did during the World Championships in 2007," says a panting Kristoffer into the microphone.

Behind the wall of the kiss and cry, Adrian Schultheiss is sitting on the floor with a can of Coca-Cola. Alexander Majorov comes up to him and shakes his head.

- It's impossible in Sweden. You should have won. Kristoffer didn't have a clean skate. He didn't do a tripe-triple combination.

I ask Adrian if he agrees.

- I wasn't flawless today, and then I don't care what score Kristoffer got. Within three weeks I've changed coaches, changed skates and been ill. I know I can beat him, but I'd rather do that when I've skated well myself. While watching him perform, I was thinking that he must shape up, he made a lot of small mistakes.

Adrian drinks a sip of Coke.

- Before, I used to skate rather badly and felt that it wasn't fun any more. I had two goals when I came here: to win and to have fun again. I actually accomplished the latter today.

[snowflake]

Almost there Siberia
Hopefully there will be a long follow up after worlds so that you have something useful to do in off season

* I'm a little annoyed that the journalist doesn't seem to know that a triple Axel is actually 3.5 revolutions in the air. Non-figure skating fans who read this article won't realize that it's the most difficult triple jump (and thus the reason why Sasha had struggled with it).

To compensate, in this article he does a quadruple axel. A proud Alexander says that the jump is filmed.

Journalist: "One of his main Swedish rivals, Adrian Schultheiss, does one, so now he is at the same level."

I suppose she means a quad toeloop. If so, good enough

google translation

[siberia82]

Page 58 (continued):

Kristoffer doesn't hear this from the other side of the wall. He smiles broadly in his chair and is breathing heavily.

- I'm tired. I feel sick.

There's an empty gaze in his eyes as he puts his head between his legs. Having partly recovered after a minute or so, he says:

- Damn, this feels good! Now the trophy is going home to where it belongs. I honestly thought that last year was the last time.

The skaters are then called to the ice to receive their medals and listen to the national anthem. Afterwards, the chairwoman of the Swedish Figure Skating Association, Maria Meyer-Martins, announces that she wants to award a grant to a skater who has shown a great degree of development during the year.

- The grant goes to Alexander Majorov.

The 19-year-old, who has just become 7500 kronor richer, seems quite disappointed at still being regarded as "promising" when he skates over to receive his plaque.

Meyer-Martins goes on to present another award.

- We would also like to draw attention to those in Swedish figure skating who have performed especially well during the year.

She reads from her sheet:

- For his outstanding achievement during the Olympics where he became the first Nordic skater to ever land a quadruple jump, later followed by yet another strong result at the World Championships where he beat his personal record. The prize goes to Alexander Schultheiss.

Adrian stands immobile on the blue line next to Kristoffer, who is holding the trophy in his arms.

"Adrian!" he shouts. "My name is Adrian."



Photo, page 59 (http://i55.tinypic.com/2zs7148.jpg):

ANXIETY. When Majorov wasn't selected for the European Championships, he called the national team managers, "f***ing Swedish p*****s idiots n*****s" on Facebook. "F*** everyone!" After Aftonbladet picked up the story, the 19-year-old sent a text message to Filter reporter Erik Almqvist: "I feel so bad now because I really didn't mean any of it."




And that's everything, folks!

[aemeraldrainc]

Page 58 (continued):
......

Meyer-Martins goes on to present another award.

- We would also like to draw attention to those in Swedish figure skating who have performed especially well during the year.

She reads from her sheet:

- For his outstanding achievement during the Olympics where he became the first Nordic skater to ever land a quadruple jump, later followed by yet another strong result at the World Championships where he beat his personal record. The prize goes to Alexander Schultheiss.

Adrian stands immobile on the blue line next to Kristoffer, who is holding the trophy in his arms.

"Adrian!" he shouts. "My name is Adrian."

I know it sounds bad and I can imagine Adrian(I feel like I know him that I can just call him Adrian now. Perhaps, too presumptuous of me, but in the end, it's up to me. Even though, I don't think I would be able to call him just Adrian to his face. hehe. Hope that makes sense.) Anyhow, I can imagine him feeling frustrated at the confusion, but it IS kinda funny in a way. Would have liked to be there.

Finally got around to being on the computer(I love my itouch, hehe, but it's harder to post with it.)

But anyways, just wanted to add my 2 cents.
I wonder what the skaters' reaction was when they read the article (if they even read it)...
I hope it doesn't deter them from being open with media in the future..

Again, Siberia, you're awesome for taking the time to translate all of this for us. Thank you. It's appreciated.