For Swedish Olympians, This Is Winter Training

Dude, the name Stefan Isaksson isn’t, like, on Huntington Beach’s Surfing Walk of Fame. But give the Swede credit.

Isaksson, head coach of the Swedish Olympic snowboard team, borrowed a page from California’s laid-back school of thought. With only a week or so till the opening ceremonies in Salt Lake City, he brought the team to sunny Orange County for a little R & R.

“We’ve been out working hard since August,” Isaksson explained while sitting poolside at the Ritz-Carlton in Laguna Niguel. “We needed to get out ... away ... to have some fun.”

Way cool.

They chose the hotel because the coach had heard from a friend of a friend that it had a great gym where the team could work out, had palm trees for environmental happiness and was close to Salt Creek beach, one of the area’s better surfing breaks.

And, since snowboarding is akin to skateboarding which is like surfing, voila! It wasn’t hard to make the leap of reason. After all, the team needed a break. The six team members would force themselves to enjoy the heated pool and Jacuzzi and try surfing in the nearby Pacific Ocean, all for Sweden.

Isaksson did, however, take some flack from Sweden’s skiing and snowboarding establishment.

“At home, they kept telling me, ‘Why aren’t you at high altitude with the team training?’” he said. “I’m the coach and I need to keep them working hard and yet happy. They need to have some fun.”

He said he knew the team would enjoy surfing and the beach. “They’re going to feel relaxed and a bit spoiled, enjoying good food and the luxurious environment. That’s what I think will make them win the Olympic gold.”

Is he a Kahuna or what?

Forget that Southern California is in the middle of a deep freeze, with chilly, frost-bitten nights. Dude, that’s what room thermostats are for. Hello?

Team member Anna Hellman, 23--who, at 5-foot-9, is one of those tall, naturally blond Nordic beauties you hear about--says she worships the sun. In her country, where summers are short, the daytime temperature this week in the northern areas was minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit.

So cold that when it snows at night and then rains, there’s only ice on the slopes the next day. That’s why they love California, especially training at Mammoth Mountain in Northern California, where they enjoyed powdered snow conditions thanks to a recent storm.

“Your weather here, is actually like our summer in Sweden,” Hellman said.

She grew up snowboarding but says it takes a back seat to downhill skiing and cross-country skiing in terms of popularity in Sweden.

Ironically, at least in the United States, there exists a generation gap that plays out at mountain resorts where old school downhill skiers turn their noses up at the younger, wilder snowboard nation.

“But in Sweden, it’s getting more popular and more interesting because television is starting to carry more snowboarding events,” Hellman said.

During a poolside lunch at their hotel, the team chowed down on club sandwiches, French fries and sodas.

But what did they really want? Swedish meatballs, they yelled.

Apparently, back home, Swedish meatball recipes are as plentiful as frozen burritos are here at the local gas-station mart.

“At home, we eat mostly Swedish meatballs and maybe a little pasta,” Markus Jonsson said. “That’s one of the things you look forward to, is Mom’s homemade food because we travel a lot. And when you travel, you always eat a lot of fried foods.”

The team had tasted fast-food cuisine on previous snowboarding trips. “Sweden has gotten Americanized, and we have plenty of California food like tacos, burritos and enchiladas,” one team member said.

Jonsson and his teammate and sister, Janet, 24, come from a small mountain village, population 150. Breakfasts consist of hearty foods such as porridge, not U.S.-style three-egg breakfasts loaded with bacon and sausages. “We eat healthier there,” he said.

They marvel at such large urban centers as Los Angeles and San Francisco. Stockholm is large, said Janet Jonsson, “but we don’t have anything like you do here with all these homes upon homes.”

Added her brother: “We live in a remote area. My dad hunts for moose and we even eat reindeer sometimes.”

After lunch, and to help them succeed with their full cultural immersion, three members of the team donned wetsuits and tried surfing.

Markus Jonsson, Magnus Sterner, 23, and Stefan Karlsson, 20, lugged the bulky, 8-foot beginner surfboards supplied by a local surf shop under their arms as they waded excitedly into the surf. (The team’s medal hopes are pinned on Sterner, last year’s World Cup winner, but the team is not considered a shoo-in for the gold in Salt Lake City.)

They bobbed like corks for what seemed a long time, waiting for the right wave. But since they were beginners, they either would stroke too soon or had trouble turning the board around.

For the record, one was a goofy and two stood regular--surf lingo for standing with either your left (regular) or right (goofy) foot forward--though what they did couldn’t really be called “standing up.”

Several times they paddled hard when a large wave broke in front of them, but as they grabbed the rails and tried to stand, the board’s nose would sink, pitching them off unmercifully.

Although the water temperatures were in the mid- to high-50s, the Swedes--accustomed to the frigid Baltic Sea--thought it was quite warm.

And what did the Salt Creek local rippers think?

“It’s a good vibe,” said Ian Calderon, 16, who surfs for nearby Capistrano Valley High School team. “It shows they’re up for new things. It’s cool they want to try.”