“Ståhl was the favorite - just to pick up the gold? Forget it!"

Swedish Olympic gold in athletics is a rarity.

Gold and silver in the same competition have not happened in modern times.

Daniel Ståhl was the favorite.

Just to pick up the gold?

Forget it!

Nothing "just" in the Olympics

There is nothing "just" about winning Olympic gold.

Many people try to convince themselves that it is like any other competition.

It is not.

The Olympics are every four years.

The Olympics are the finest.

Being a gold favorite is greater pressure than anything else - it is impossible to conjure away.

Having won 41 of 47 competitions in three years - many in the toughest possible competition gives self-confidence to lean on.

Medals from three straight championships valuable experience.

But when the cast is to be made in the ring, it is only there and then and you that matters.

Daniel Ståhl mastered it superbly and he is a great master!

One of the largest in Swedish athletics history.

Pettersson the ugly ankungen

If Ståhl is the super talent who has matured and refined in collaboration with coach Vesteinn Hafsteinsson, Simon Pettersson is the ugly duckling who was graciously allowed to join the same training group.

A passable former all-rounder from little Sixarby in Roslagen where he threw discus against rag rugs at the lodge in the barn. 

Hafsteinsson has said that from the beginning he did not believe much in Simon's possibilities, but his enormous will and work ethic impressed.

Gradually, the results also came.

Simon Pettersson is one of the most friendly, polite, almost timid, athletes I have met.

At the same time one of the most brutally strong competition people.

And today he is an Olympic medalist.

It used to be worse

There was a time when Swedish pitchers boasted of great annual bests they could never live up to when it came to.

Ricky Bruch competed every other day as it stormed from the right direction on an open throwing field in Skåne.

Others came home from the USA with impressive results from early spring, but the form curves appeared when they came home to Sweden.

Daniel Ståhl and Simon Pettersson have never chased results.

They have hardened in competitions with fierce competition.

That is what creates Olympic medalists.

Now that Ståhl has won both the World Cup and the Olympics, it may be time to look up those windy throwing plans and erase the old world record.