July 21, 2010 – Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla won the Tour de Ski in 2008, but since then has not taken part in popular stage race. She missed both the 2009 and 2010 editions, but she is back to a full regimen of training again and the Tour de Ski is one of Kalla’s main objectives this coming season according to the Swedish newspaper Expressen, along with the Nordic World Championships in Oslo.

The 23-year-old skier from Tärendö is also working hard to develop her classic technique, which is essential if she wants to win World Championship gold in the double pursuit. In the free technique she’s among the world’s best, which she proved with her 2010 Vancouver Olympic gold in the 10km Free.

Expressen found that Kalla was very concentrated and focused on very hard running workouts in the terrain around the ski stadium at home in Östersund.

She works closely with their team psychologist Lars-Erik Sandler.   Before each workout Kalla thinks over exactly what she wants to achieve and what she should do. An evaluation of each session follows.

“Charlotte is trying to find a way to get more out of every workout. A few percent can make the difference between gold or failure,” said Sandler. Kalla agrees with him, “It’s mostly a mental issue. And I’m constantly working on that with Lars-Erik.”

Read the original article from Landg.se click here.