Sondre Oddvoll Bøe

[DenissVFan]

I don't really know what to say now

 

[norwegianfairytale]

I don't really know what to say now

I´m really really sad. Feel like a real heartache, like a sudden heart break. I guess this was a tough decision for him. Giving up just before OG, and always fighting so hard to go to WC.

 

[DenissVFan]

I´m really really sad. Feel like a real heartache, like a sudden heart break. I guess this was a tough decision for him. Giving up just before OG, and always fighting so hard to go to WC.

Me too Take care!

It must have been a really tough year for him skating-wise... But after seeing that 3S-1Eu-3S I didn't think he'd quit so suddenly.

At least I'm glad I created this fan fest. I hope we'll have more things to talk about in the future even after his retirement.

 

[DenissVFan]

On a more positive note, Sondre appeared in this video by a Norwegian gymnast:

https://youtu.be/8vU7dmI9SLI

 

[elbkup]

I am stunned by the news!! I wish him the very best. Hope hope he continues in figure skating in some capacity... coach? choreographer? He has such artistic feel for movement and music.

 

[norwegianfairytale]

Me too Take care!

It must have been a really tough year for him skating-wise... But after seeing that 3S-1Eu-3S I didn't think he'd quit so suddenly.

At least I'm glad I created this fan fest. I hope we'll have more things to talk about in the future even after his retirement.

You too! I´m really grateful you made this thread, that we could enjoy his last journey as a skater together and that we can share and follow whats next here. I would be more then happy to continue contribute in this thread

As I have let things sink a little in, the retirement makes more and more sense to me now. Since December, when we learned B117 could cause a third wave and nothing was going to change much the next months (yet the vaccines), I suspected his prospects of competing at all this season was very low. I wasn´t very worried the first half of the season, because I always thought spring would be an option and it was still a lot of time before OG. But that´s the thing with figure skating, OG spots are already earned at WC and for the rest it´s the the very difficult qualifier event early in the OG-season. The field is so difficult, and with no 3A he would have to lean on others failing to surpass the technical content. Right before the video submission, he trained really hard on his FS and it seems he did everything to give it a try. As you say, you could see worked really hard recently, given the the 3S-1EU-3S combo, yet we don´t know what happen, it seems it didn´t go very well at the try out and that must have been very hard on him. Sondre has told in his podcast, how hard it has taken on him not qualify to WC before. He told he was so disappointed, he couldn´t watch WC, even to follow his skating friends.

I think Sondres OG-plans was very dependent on him going on camp in summer to develop himself. In 2019 he wrote in his blog he had started training on quads in Italy. It´s a learning progress, but I guess he was hoping he might get a quad for OG. He missed last summer, so did a lot of others. All though, he made the best of it and even went to Finland and composed programs with Tom Dickson. One of the programs, Vivaldi, was his dream program. He has never stated this, but I suspect this program was made with thought on OG. I don´t think the would have made the effort and money making this programs if he ever imagined he would retire one year later and not make it to olympic season.

As you may know, Norway is in the third wave now and it´s not going well. Prospect of a normal summer is looking very bleak. It´s just not here, but other European countries struggling as well. The situation has worsened a lot the recent weeks and I think a lot hoped the vaccine would be a game changer and by the summer, everything would look more normal.

But it´s very hard to control the B117 and the restrictions we had before doesn´t work as well as last year, and people are tired. Hospitals here are not doing well. A lot more people than before are in need of ICU, and most of the hospitals have started cancelling operations. They just sent 30 health workers from others parts of Norway to the capital to help the hospitals there because they have called out of help, they are in need of more staff.

The government has prepared us for living with restrictions the next months, and they have advised against travel this summer as well. Sondre would most likely not be able to go to camp this summer either and he probably needs to work more on his technical content to have a chance for OG.

Also, I think they just closed his rink now and the gymnastic! So once again, he can´t train as normal and skate...

So, there are so many challenges on the way now, and I guess he is tired of all the hard work but no prospects of knowing if it will pay off.

At the same time, he is doing great as an influencer and with his podcast, and he has reached almost 17 000 followers on Instagram recently. He has said before that he wants to work with social media when he is retiring, perhaps together with some choreographing and coaching. With his Podcast-success now, it´s wise of him to grab the chance and make it a living. He already started to make new episodes.

 

[Harriet]

I'm sorry to hear things aren't going well in Norway COVID-wise, norwegianfairytale. Lots of places do seem to be having trouble suppressing b117 waves, because it's so much more transmissible that you've got to get the R down to 0.8 or lower to suppress it and that's just really really hard without a sustained total lockdown. I hope the measures you've got in place work.

And I suspect you're absolutely right about why Sondre chose to retire - given the combination of understanding how difficult it would be to train for and get to the Olympics and how well his podcast etc have been doing, plus the difficulty of maintaining motivation for competitive-level training under those circumstances, it's a reasonable, understandable choice for him to make, as he has something to move into straight away. At least we have all those lovely open-air skating videos he was doing in the past few weeks. I wondered if he might have had more of a toll from injuries than he'd talked about openly, but looking back on those videos I doubt it. He just made the right choice for him.

 

[norwegianfairytale]

Thank you, Harriet. It´s a bit absurd that we are now in this situation, considering how well it went last spring. But the closing of schools and kindergarten one year ago was very criticed and it has been said that we will shield the children and keep the schools and kindergarten open of it´s possible. This variant is causing bigger outbreaks in school now, so because of that the situation have gotten out of control after we imported the B117 to the country. Add on the South African variant. Also, I don´t think anybody expected this rapid raise in hospitals numbers as nursing homes are done with vaccines. But hospitals have patients down in the 20s, and the pandemic has shifted to be more severe to younger people. I guess it´s the nature of the virus.

I think Sondre touched the topic about injuries in the podcast as well, speaking with one of his guest about injuries. Sondre told he had never been struggling with injury in his career, and he has been very lucky a skater who never had to struggle with it. I think he made the podcast last summer/autumn, so something might have turned up since, but as you say, it doesn´t look like he had problems of the clips we have seen.

I think there also could be a partly another reason for the decision, the finical cost for skating. Sondre was in the Norwegian newspaper last year, telling how his parents have paid a lot of money for his skating career the recent years. They have spent over 100,000 - 150,000 dollars to fund his skating career from their own pockets, and his father even working two jobs to pay of the extra cost (The Federation has paid for parts of the cost, but it´s not nearly enough). His parents are more then happy to contribute, but with the effort his parents put into his skating and money, I guess he doesn´t want them to spend more money on him if he didn´t think his goals was reachable. Maybe he only felt comfortable making them pay for him until the next OG, but not another 4 years.

 

[DenissVFan]

I wonder if he had made up his mind before the video evaluation was announced (he didn't even enter any of competitions taking place in February) but then decided to give it one more shot.

 

[norwegianfairytale]

I wonder if he had made up his mind before the video evaluation was announced (he didn't even enter any of competitions taking place in February) but then decided to give it one more shot.

I had that thought too, because he hasn´t been sharing much from the rinks the recent months, and seem to rather go outdoor skating than indoors. I think at least it must have been in his mind for some months already, but maybe he wanted to see how the pandemic developed before he made the decision.

About not signing up for the events in February, i´m not sure it´s his decision, but the federations. Nobody else from Norway signed up. All though Sondre was the only one who had a real shot to qualify for WC, there are some other seniors as well would might wanted to compete international. At Warszaw cup, he and Frida Berge WD at the same time.

Athletes in Norway don´t get any exceptions for the quarantine rule to compete international. They have to go into 10-days of quarantine upon return, they can not test themselves out of the quarantine. The Biathlon team for example have chosen to go from venue to venue and not return to Norway in between, except a few athletes who returned after WC but chose to stay in quarantine. Some of them, like the Bø brothers, have a cabin at Sjusjøen and went there for Christmas holidays and spent time with their girlfriends in quarantine. Just outside the doors they have ski slopes, and they are allowed to use them in quarantine as long as they stay away from other people. So they could still be in quarantine but be able to ski. But other biathletes, never went home for Christmas, but went to Oberhof to train (the next venue).

A skater spending 10 days in self-quarantine, won´t be allowed inside the rinks, and it means not being able to skate for 10 days. I´m not sure how skaters in other countries have managed this, but I don´t think they had this strict quarantine rules or could go to the rinks if they had a negative test?

When Sondre and the team signed up for events earlier, Norway would give exceptions for quarantine for countries with low infection rate. I think the team signed up in hope they could go and not need quarantine, but they WD when they knew the infection rate had passed the requirement and quarantine would be required for the respective events. And maybe also because it didn´t feel safe to go.

Late December Norway tightened the quarantine rules because of the new variants, so you need a quarantine anyways and I think that is the reason he never entered Challenge cup or other events.

 

[norwegianfairytale]

Sondre posted a heart-felt thank you on his Instagram-account yesterday, with a picture from his SP-costume this season, which sadly we never get to experience. I simply just love the strong red colour.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CMpkFeZJNHI/

His message: "All the love I received the last 24 hours is some of the craziest I have ever experienced. Messages and comments have brought me to tears (a little emotional unstable atm) and i´m so grateful. Thank you so much"

Also I wanted to share with you that the skating federation is arranging a digital convention for the skaters this weekend. The skaters have submitted the videos earlier this week in their respective rinks (some of them even skated outside because of closed rinks) and the panel of judges are judging on Zoom yesterday, today and on Tuesday. After each day, they publish the score sheet and the videos are published on YouTube.

Senior ladies was judged yesterday, and Sondres club member, Frida Berge, won the senior ladies event. I wanted to share the video from Frida, because Sondre choreographed this program:



I also want to share to you the only skater in Novice boys. Francis Kværno Sutton is the oldest competitive male skater in Norway after Sondre and he is a promising talent already jumping 3S. He is on the Norwegian development program for figure skaters for OG-2026. I´m hoping Sondre will play a role in his further skating development. As there are so few male skaters in Norway, a role model as Sondre would make a great mentor. Sondre choreographing programs for Francis would be a great match. Just look at his costume - it sure looks like they had the same thought for SP-costume

 

[norwegianfairytale]

Another program Sondre choreographed for his club members, this one from Linnea Sophie Kolstad Kilsand. She won the junior A ladies digital convention with 51,48 points. She even hit 29 in TES, so I hope they will consider moving her to senior next season, because she has the technical content for WC if she is consistent.


Sondre also choreographed this program for another club member, Ida Vamnes. She placed 3rd. She just moved from Novice to Juniors, but she for sure will be one that could fight for OG spots in 2026.

I´m pretty sure Sondre will work with them in the future, so just watch up the next generation of junior ladies, I don´t think it will be that long before we see one of Sondres program performed in a championship

 

[DenissVFan]

Thank you for the videos, I'll watch them after Worlds

I was actually introduced to Frida, Linnea and Ida through Sondre's IG and their club's IG. Sondre seems really supportive of them, reposting their jumps, including them in his ads etc.