Björn Ferry mourns Halvar Hanevold: "Tragic"

SVT Sports expert Björn Ferry competed against Halvar Hanevold many times, and also had a lot of contact with him after his career, when Hanevold worked as an expert for Norwegian NRK.

- We had some common interests. We talked a lot about stocks, politics and other things outside of sports. He was interested in more things than just sports, and he was extremely interested in what he was interested in, he says, and continues:

- We found each other on certain things.

And as a pure athlete and biathlete, how do you look at him there?

- He was an outstanding champion, and above all, one that you would never have guessed would be so great. Ole Einar Björndalen went as a cat after all and everything was so perfect and a great talent since he was little.

- But Halvar had to fight for everything. He had such a very strange technique, and one thought, "How can this man succeed?" But he did so, through extreme discipline. He was careful with every detail. Everything that was possible to control, he checked.

Ferry has many examples of Hanevold's extreme accuracy.

- He always had a notepad with him and wrote down everything. He documented everything. He wanted to control everything that could affect performance. What happens if the bag disappears, how do I fix it? What if the plane does not work? What happens if the barrel becomes oblique?

- Backup solutions to everything. He was extremely careful with everything. If I tested skiing, then he tested ski boots. Nobody else tested it, but he wanted to find the absolute best boots. And he started with three different rods, and most of all waited for the last to choose his rods. Almost no one is thinking about that.

Although Hanevold ended up in the shadow of Ole Einar Björndalen during most of his career, Björn Ferry Hanevold ranks high.

- He is quite high up in world history, in that he has so many championship medals. After all, he ended up in some way medially in the shadow of Björndalen. But he has several Olympic golds and gold in the World Cup. And then he was extremely popular as a human being, there are not many times there has been anything negative about Halvar Hanevold, says Björn Ferry.