Nils van der Poel has landed in Sweden.
On Sunday evening, he received a warm welcome at a well-attended gold ceremony in central Stockholm.
- It has been a very long journey home but it is very fun to come here and meet all these people, it is a lot of joy, says the double Olympic gold medalist.
Hailed by Ygeman
During the ceremony, the 25-year-old was honored by, among others, the skating school legend Tomas Gustafsson and the Minister of Sports Anders Ygeman.
- I feel a lot of joy and I am a little surprised that so many others feel so much joy too, it feels very very fun for me to share it, says van der Poel who, of course, got a lot of questions about the future.
However, he could not give any definitive answers.
- I do not know what to do and it is no secret, I will at least continue to train because it is a way to feel good.
We have talked a lot about swimrun and I look forward to it, then I have said that I will lecture a little and I will certainly do that, then we will see, I am quite tagged on the future, he says.
"It's cool to have two Olympic golds"
You usually signal that life is bigger than sports, how do you relate to that now that you have two Olympic gold medals? Is that still true?
- Yes, yes, absolutely, I think so, it's cool to have two Olympic golds, I can recommend it as part of life.
How do you mean?
- A sports bet is not justified by a possible Olympic success, in which case all sports bets except one would have failed by definition and that just can not be, it is completely impossible.
Was the gold worth all the fighting?
- Yes, oh well, but the fighting was valuable too.
Some days have been hard
How hard has it been to be this good?
- Some days it has been quite hard, but life is quite hard and you can probably count on that regardless of whether you should take Olympic gold or not, but it is clear that some minutes will be a little extra hard if you think you should take OS Gold.
How eager are you to do this in four years?
- It would have been asphalt.
Right now, I do not feel like sitting on the bike for seven hours, but it would have been fun to do this again.
I think I will go all-round-SM every year until I can no longer skate, but I do not think I will do any major international championships after this season, that's what I think anyway.