How to go for gold on Swedish snow

GO SWEDEN:Want to relive the Winter Olympics without having to travel far? Sweden is the perfect place to stage your own sporting events – just for fun, of course, writes JASPER WINN

EVERY FOUR summers, around come the Olympic Games, and a sizeable portion of us spend three weeks sitting watching other, fitter folk running, hopping, skipping and throwing things. Then, as the fanfares of the closing ceremony fade out, we might be inspired to pull on a pair of trainers, squeeze into the Speedos or oil the chain of the high nelly and head out to fulfil our destiny as Olympian runners, swimmers or cyclists.

The Winter Olympics are more problematic. Notwithstanding the ice and snow we’ve had this season, actually getting in the full range of post-Vancouver sliding, skidding and slipping action can be challenging. Canada is a long-haul flight away (and to be honest hasn’t been having a great snow season this year). There’s Ireland’s only artificial ski slope, at the Ski Club of Ireland in Co Dublin, and there’s the usual ski-holiday destinations where you can play at some of the winter games.

Or there’s Sweden. Where you can try out pretty much all of the Olympian snow and ice sports – short of actually throwing yourself down a ski jump and soaring off into space. It’s one of the few countries that allows walk-in clients to pick up skis and a rifle and try out biathlon, for a start. There are all the obvious downhill sports with boards and skis, as well as skating trails on natural ice, sledge courses and thousands of kilometres of cross-country skiing routes. For the real adrenalin junkie denied the ski-jump experience, there is the consolation of joining in a pub curling match, the “housekeeping on ice” that really excites only the Scots and the Swedes.

For some reason Sweden doesn’t occur to many Irish as a top snow destination. Which is strange. Maybe people still think of it as cripplingly expensive, but with the Swedish kroner having slid over the decades and the euro strengthened, everything from accommodation to meals out and even drink is cheaper than in Ireland and good value compared with other European winter destinations.

And that’s before you factor in Swedish ski resorts’ guarantee of snow from November to May, thanks to their “fifth season” of winter-spring, in April, when the days are long, the snow good and the sun warm, and the queues for ski lifts are short. And all a quick budget flight from Ireland.

If you and your pals wanted to hold your own Winter Olympics, you could give nearly every event a try – without needing the single-minded, body-busting focus of the specialist cross-country skier, speed skater or bobsleigher.

Fly into Stockholm from Dublin and you can learn to skate on natural ice on the outskirts of the city. At 30,000 Öar (or 30,000 Islands, 30000oar.se), equipment and instruction are provided, and skaters are taken on tours of the frozen lakes and waterways. If you’ve done some ice-rink skating in the past, or used in-line skates, the technique will come easily and you’ll be able to glide along in a graceful waltzing sway, the sensation of silent speed given a further edge by the knowledge that just 30cm or so under the solidified water you’re sliding across are the dark depths. In the unlikely event of someone going through the ice, the instructors are trained in safety and rescue procedures; indeed, venturing on to any ice without an experienced guide will guarantee a gold medal in the freestyle stupidity competition.

For a more surreal ski-training experience, Fortum Ski Tunnel, in Torsby (skitunnel.se), has more than a kilometre of ski and skating circuits cut through a mountain. The tunnel is also one of the few places in the world where you can just turn up and try biathlon, arguably the ultimate test of fitness. After heart-busting speed-ski circuits you then have to still your pulse and breathing enough to hold a high-powered rifle steady and loose off five shots with some degree of accuracy. At Fortum Ski Tunnel a package of instruction, rifle, skis and ammunition costs about €65 a person.

Though you won’t be able to take a rifle along, central Sweden’s snow resorts of Funäsdalen and Åre provide hundreds of kilometres of cross-country ski trails, with Funäsdalen having about 300 groomed trails and more than 400km of back-country marked routes.

Those keen to test their aerobic capacity to the limit can practise the fast but gruelling “skate” technique used by competitive skiers such as Rory Morrish, Ireland’s Olympian cross-country skier in the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics, and PJ Barron, our entry in Vancouver’s 15km race.

Lesser mortals can slot their skis into the prepared grooved “tramlines” and slide along at a more leisurely pace. Some trails are almost suburban, with five- and 10-kilometre circuits lit for evening use and equipped with changing cabins and welcoming cafes, while mountain trails lead off into a wilderness that is far more like Canada than Europe in its expanses of forest and open wilderness – and also in its wildlife. Though in winter the region’s bears will be hibernating, elusive lynx, wolverine and wolves will be sharing the hills with you, and you’re more than likely to see enormous elk or herds of reindeer.

Funäsdalen and Åre are also renowned downhill and snowboarding centres. An Irish team competed in the 2007 World Downhill Ski Championships, held in Åre, and a few in-the-know Irish sport skiers have discovered the ease of flying into Stockholm from Dublin with Ryanair and then taking the comfortable overnight train (sj.se) with sleeper cabins, a bar and restaurant, arriving in Åre in time to hit the slopes after breakfast.

There is good snow with no queuing for the 46 lifts serving more than 100km of prepared pistes and whole mountains of off-piste slopes. Accommodation, too, can be good value: a cabin sleeping four, complete with essential sauna, costs less than €500 a week, while instruction at all levels, equipment hire and ski passes all compare favourably with prices in the Alps and other skiing areas. (Skistar.com is a one-stop website for booking accommodation, arranging passes and for general information about Åre, and funasdalen.com has information on the Funäsdalen resorts.)

Since the first Winter Olympics, in France in 1924, there have been attempts to introduce new and decidedly odd sliding sports. Skijöring – being pulled along on skis by a team of dogs – was one activity presented as an exhibition sport, although it failed to get elected. Nonetheless, Sweden’s indigenous reindeer herders, the Sami, still practice a more macho version of skijöring, in which they tie themselves behind a galloping reindeer.

One newcomer sport that did make it on to the list of official Winter Olympic events was snowboarding, and Sweden caught the trend in its earliest days, making snow parks in all the ski centres with half-pipes, jumps and slalom courses. It could be the snowboarders who turned up Åre’s volume as a party town, with apres-ski bars and late-night clubs concentrating more on dancing than on drinking (another saving in a country where alcohol costs about the same as in Ireland).

Åre has a stand-in, too, for the various sitting- and lying-down snow events of the Olympics. Every Wednesday evening you can hire a sledge and helmet from the town square, take the funicular railway up into the mountains and sledge in an exhilarating rush back down to the centre of town.

If you’ve tried all these activities already, you’ll be keen to tick off the last few. Just outside Åre is the village of Duved, and the charmingly atmospheric Hotel Duvedsgården, which with its wooden panelling, open fires and tranquil atmosphere can seem a world away from the high-energy rush of the Winter Olympic sports. It has an outdoor ice-dancing rink where you can dance, jump and twirl a while before strolling over to the curling rink, picking up a broom and joining in with a game of winter tiddlywinks.

That’s nearly the whole menu of sports needed to make you an all-round winter Olympian – or at least all that the averagely sane person might want to have a go at. Because, frankly, no one is going to let you just climb up to the top of a ski-jump slope and then give you a push to speed you on your way.

But what about ice hockey, I hear you ask. You might want to avoid that as a subject in Sweden for the next four years. Their team didn’t do as well as they’d hoped in Vancouver, the gold medal for stick-fighting on ice going to Canada. Still, Sweden wins out in many other ways when it comes to sport in the snow.

Where to stay and go in and around Åre

Where to stay

• Belwobyn, on the edge of Åre, has apartments with saunas and open fires next to the World Cup piste and convenient for early starts on to the slopes, yet still only a short stroll from bars and restaurants. A low-season week costs about €400, rising to €1,000 from now until early April.
• Bookingfor all accommodation in Åre and Belwobyn is available through skistar.com.
• Storulvanis a remote mountain centre accessible from Åre by rail and bus, and run as part of the Swedish hostel system. More like a hotel than a hostel, it offers dormitory beds for about €15 a person – or twin-bed rooms for €100 a room. The licensed restaurant is renowned for its local ingredients, including salmon, reindeer and mountain fungi. Equipment and instruction for cross-country skiing, ski-touring, snowshoeing and ice-climbing are available on site. See svenskaturistforeningen.se
• Hotel Duvedsgården, in Duved, which was built in 1878, still retains a historic charm. Wood-panelled rooms are warmed by log fires, and the gourmet restaurant is one of the best in the Åre valley. There are saunas, a jacuzzi and a billiards room, and prepared cross-country skiing trails and ski lifts to the slopes, as well as ski hire and ski classes, all within walking distance. Prices for two people sharing range from €200 to €400 per person for three nights' half-board (with breakfast and dinner), depending on the week in the season. hotelduvedsgarden.se.

Go there

• Ryanair(ryanair.com) flies to Stockholm Skavsta from Dublin. Scandinavian Airlines (flysas.ie) flies to Stockholm Arlanda from Dublin.