Sebastian Samuelsson

Sebastian Samuelsson
Association	Sweden
birthday	28th March 1997 (age 23)
place of birth	Katrineholm
size	183 cm
Weight	78 kg
Career
job	professional
society	I 21 IF
Trainer	Wolfgang Pichler
Debut in the European Cup / IBU Cup	2016
Debut in the World Cup	2016
World Cup victories	3 relay victories
status	active
Medal table
Olympic medals 1 × 1 × 0 × World Cup medals 0 × 0 × 1 × EM medals 1 × 0 × 0 ×
winter Olympics gold 2018 Pyeongchang Season silver 2018 Pyeongchang persecution  Biathlon world championships bronze 2019 Östersund Single mixed relay  European biathlon championships gold 2019 Minsk-Raubitschy Mixed relay
World Cup balance
Overall World Cup	22. ( 2018/19 )
Individual World Cup	9. (2018/19)
Sprint World Cup	16. (2018/19)
Pursuit World Cup	26. ( 2019/20 )
Mass start world cup	28. (2018/19)
Podium placements 1. 2. 3. sprint 0 0 1 Season 3 0 2
last change: April 23, 2020

Sebastian Samuelsson (born March 28, 1997 in Katrineholm ) is a Swedish biathlete . He made his debut in the 2016 World Cup and won the gold medal in the relay and the silver medal in the pursuit at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.

Career

Beginnings (until 2016)

Samuelsson began as a child in Sollefteå skidor IF with cross-country skiing and took 2,011 first parallel also the sport of biathlon in I 21 IF on. He competed in several national cross-country skiing races in the junior division, including a fourth place at the 2015 Swedish Junior Championships in the freestyle sprint. In the same year he started in biathlon on an international level: at the European Youth Olympic Winter Festival he won the silver medal in the sprint and the gold medal in the subsequent pursuit, and in the junior world championships he finished eleventh in the individual. In March 2015, the Swedish Association named 18-year-old Samuelsson Biathlete of the Year (cross-gender; in the original: "Årets skidskytt"). He thus succeeded the resigned Olympic champion Björn Ferry . Samuelsson made his debut in the IBU Cup at the end of January 2016 in Ridnaun , where he initially missed the points in the sprint as 43rd, but qualified for the pursuit race, in which he was 37th to win first points. In the same winter, he finished sixth in the sprint and fifth in the pursuit at the World Youth Championship .

First World Cup appearances and Olympic medals (2016 to 2018)

The Swedish biathlon head coach Wolfgang Pichler built a rejuvenated World Cup team from 2015 with a view to the home world championships that will take place four years later - and as a result of the resignations of several leading athletes. From the 2016/17 season , this also included the now 19-year-old Samuelsson, who had previously won two national titles in summer biathlon . In his first seven individual World Cup races, he consistently reached the top 40 points (with a 13th place as the best result) and at the end of winter he finished 43rd in the overall World Cup. The Biathlon World Association IBU he was the best-placed rookie of the year award as rookie of the year .

In the following season , the climax of which was the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang , Samuelsson was not placed in the top 20 in any pre-Olympic individual World Cup races. At the Olympics, however, he was first fourteenth in the sprint, hit 19 out of 20 targets in the pursuit and prevailed on the final lap against Benedikt Doll in a duel for second place behind Martin Fourcade . Samuelsson's silver medal was received as a big surprise by the media, as was the Olympic victory of his teammate Hanna Öberg in the women's individual race. Coach Wolfgang Pichler justified the success of his athletes with the fact that the wind conditions and the route profile in Pyeongchang were similar to those in Östersund. In the Olympic 20-kilometer individual competition, Samuelsson took fourth place, a leading result and with a miss was only 15 seconds behind the third-placed Dominik Landertinger who remained clear . At the end of the Olympic Games, the Swedish men's relay won the gold medal. Samuelsson ran in third position, took over the relay with a slight deficit from Peppe Femling and Jesper Nelin and handed over at about the same time as the leading Norwegian Johannes Thingnes Bø to final runner Fredrik Lindström , who prevailed against Emil Hegle Svendsen . In a similar constellation - with Martin Ponsiluoma in Femling's place - the Swedish relay had won a World Cup race for the first time in nine years in Oberhof a few weeks earlier.

After the Olympics, Samuelsson decided not to take part in the final World Cup races in March 2018 in Tyumen, Russia , justifying his boycott by stating that “nations without a functioning anti-doping organization should not hold competitions on an international level”. He followed - independently of the Swedish federation and as the only representative of his country - the decision of the Canadian, Czech and US teams who had collectively withdrawn their biathletes. Samuelsson said he received death threats following his decision. In October 2018, he took part in a discussion on non-doping sport in the White House with other athletes, ministers and representatives of anti-doping agencies .

Extended world class (since 2018)

In the winters 2018/19 and 2019/20 Samuelsson was the best Swede with a 22nd and a 28th place in the respective overall World Cup rankings, but could not establish himself among the absolute leading athletes. He achieved his first individual podium result in the World Cup (which does not include the Olympic competitions) in January 2019 in the Oberhof sprint, in which he hit with all ten shots and finished third behind Alexander Loginow and Johannes Thingnes Bø. In the pursuit a day later, he made eight mistakes and fell back to 39th place. At the 2019 World Championships in Östersund, he finished fourth in the 20-kilometer individual race, making it the best individual result for a Swedish man. Together with Hanna Öberg, who became world champion in the women's 15-kilometer competition, he also won the bronze medal in the single mixed relay at this World Cup. In 2019, Samuelsson and Öberg successfully contested another joint single mixed relay: In November they won the World Cup opener - also in Östersund - ahead of Franziska Preuß and Erik Lesser . For Samuelsson, after another success with the men's relay in Hochfilzen in December 2018, it was the third World Cup victory. He also won the European Championship title in 2019 with the mixed relay team led by Emma Nilsson , Mona Brorsson and Martin Ponsiluoma.

2020 Samuelsson received the from the sports program of the public Swedish TV conferred Sportspegelpriset for his personal commitment against doping. In the fall of 2019, he sharply attacked the World Anti-Doping Agency and its chairman, Craig Reedie , for their dealings with the Russian Anti-Doping Agency. Reedie is ultimately responsible for “the greatest doping scandal of all time” and, as a “78-year-old white man”, symbolizes many things that go wrong in modern sport. "Money, power and a luxurious lifestyle" are more important to the leading figures than the sport itself.

Personal

Samuelsson grew up with his parents and two younger siblings in Malmköping in the province of Södermanland , where his parents ran a farm. In 2006 the family moved to another farm in Sollefteå to the north . It was there that Samuelsson joined the Sollefteå Skidor IF and, as a child, met his role models such as cross-country skier Charlotte Kalla . At the grammar school in Sollefteå he attended the same class as Ebba Andersson , who also won an Olympic medal in the relay in cross-country skiing in 2018. In 2017 Samuelsson moved to Östersund.

statistics

World Cup victories

Samuelsson and Hanna Öberg after winning the World Cup in the single mixed relay in Östersund 2019

No.	date	place	discipline
1.	0Jan. 7, 2018	Oberhof	Relay (4 × 7.5 km) 1
2.	16 Dec 2018	Hochfilzen	Relay (4 × 7.5 km) 2
3.	Nov 30, 2019	Ostersund	Single mixed relay (6 km + 7.5 km) 3

¹with Martin Ponsiluoma , Jesper Nelin and Fredrik Lindström

²with Peppe Femling , Martin Ponsiluoma and Torstein Stenersen

³with Hanna Öberg

World Cup placements

The table shows all placements (depending on the year, including the Olympic Games and World Championships).

• 1st - 3rd Place: Number of podium placements
• Top 10: Number of placements in the top ten (including podium)
• Points ranks: Number of placements within the point ranks (including podium and top 10)
• Starts: Number of races run in the respective discipline
• Relay: including mixed relays

placement	singles	sprint	persecution	Mass start	Season	total
1st place					3	3
2nd place
3rd place		1			2	3
Top 10	3	2	1		22nd	28
Scoring	6th	22nd	19th	7th	25th	79
Starts	7th	29	22nd	7th	26th	91
Status: end of season 2019/20

Biathlon world championships

Results at world championships:

World Championship		Individual competitions				Relay competitions
year	place	sprint	persecution	singles	Mass start	Men's relay	Mixed relay	S.-M.-Relay
2017	Hochfilzen	76.	-	52.	-	11.	-
2019	Ostersund	29	16.	4th	26th	7th	5.	3.
2020	Antholz	11.	19th	10.	27.	10.	11.	4th

winter Olympics

Results at Olympic Winter Games:

	Individual competitions				Relay competitions
	sprint	persecution	singles	Mass start	Men's relay	Mixed relay
Olympic Winter Games 2018 | Pyeongchang	14th	2.	4th	23.	1.	-

Web links

Commons : Sebastian Samuelsson  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Sebastian Samuelsson in the IBU database (English)
• Sebastian Samuelsson in the database of the International Ski Federation (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Sebastian Samuelsson. Eurosport , accessed February 23, 2020 . 
2. ↑ Svenska result, EYOF Vorarlberg Liechtenstein 2015 on sok.se (PDF). Retrieved April 23, 2020.
3. ↑ Marianne Tharaldsson: Årets on skidskytte.se. Retrieved April 23, 2020.
4. ^ Sandra Degenhardt and Volker Gundrum: Swedish sensation on neue-deutschland.de. Released February 15, 2018. Accessed April 23, 2020.
5. ↑ Saskia Aleythe: Mr. Pichler and the fast Swedes on sueddeutsche.de. Released February 14, 2018. Accessed April 23, 2020.
6. ↑ Hannes Nyberg: Sebastian Samuelsson bojkottar världscupavslutningen on svt.se. Original tweet from Sebastian Samuelsson [@SebbeSamuelsson]: “Har bestämt mig för att bojkotta VC-avslutningen i Ryssland. Nationer utan en fungerande anti-doping organization ska inte ha tavlingar på internationell nivå. Dessutom orolig för säkerheten både för mig själv and för de dopingtester som lämnas in Ryssland. "
7. ↑ Samuelsson boycotted World Cup final in Russia on sport.de. Released March 6, 2018. Accessed April 23, 2020.
8. ↑ Simon Sjöstrand: "De vill att jag och min familj ska dö i cancer" on aftonbladet.se. Released December 5, 2018. Accessed April 23, 2020.
9. ↑ Andreas Käck: Svenske hjälten på plats - i Vita huset on aftonbladet.se. Released October 31, 2018. Accessed April 23, 2020.
10. ↑ Tobias Dahlberg: Sebastian Samuelsson vinnare av Sportspegelpriset on svt.se. Released January 27, 2020. Accessed April 23, 2020.
11. ↑ Daniel Grefve: Sebastian Samuelsson nya dopningsutspel: "Jag blir förbannad" on svt.se. Published on October 2, 2019. Accessed on April 23, 2020. “Jag blir förbannad på Wadas ordförande Sir Craig Reedie. Det är Reedie som har det yttersta ansvaret för den största dopningsskandalen någonsin. Ordförande Reedie är en 78-årig vit man och symboliserar på många sätt allt som är galet med idrottsrörelsen i dag. Idrotten has blivit en bransch där vita men vill göra karriär på kostnad av allt som idrotligen ska handla om. Pengar, makt och en lyxig livsstil är viktigare än själva idrotten. "
12. ↑ Johan Flinck: ”Blir inte förvånad om han blir statsminister ” on aftonbladet.se. Released February 12, 2018. Accessed April 23, 2020.
13. ↑ Ivanna Nikolskaya: Accio, medal! In: Biathlonworld , number 50/2019, pp. 70–75. Available as PDF .