By Philip O’Connor
ANTERSELVA, Italy, Feb 5 (Reuters) – The sudden death of biathlete Sivert Guttom Bakken in December shocked the winter sports world, and his grieving Norwegian teammates tried to come to terms with it by staying during their Winter Olympics preparations at the same hotel in which he died.
The 27-year-old was discovered in his room in the town of Lavaze wearing a mask designed to simulate high-altitude conditions that can potentially improve endurance.
“It’s very special to be at the same hotel where he was (when he died). It’s very beautiful, but also very strange,” Norwegian biathlete Johannes Dale-Skjevdal said.
“It’s very smart to do it that way, so that you face the situation and take some control. I think it’s been very important for all of us.”
The Norwegian team has enlisted professional help as they try to make sense of Bakken’s death.
“We had a psychologist with us (at the World Cup event) in Oberhof the first week after the death, and also in Lavaze for the first days, because we knew that coming back here would be very strange,” said Dale-Skjevdal, who comes into the Olympics ranked sixth in the world.
“We knew which room it was and had a desire to visit it as part of the therapy, but it’s still closed due to the investigation.”
POPULAR FIGURE
Bakken was a popular figure in the tight-knit biathlon community and had planned to go skiing with Italian Tommaso Giacomel on the day of his death. Instead, Dale-Skjevdal was left to break the news to his teammates.
“I got a very early phone call from a former biathlete friend, who told me what had happened … I immediately felt a need to call my friends to share the news and talk, because I was obviously in shock. They were very special phone calls to make, but everyone had a great need to talk those days,” Dale-Skjevdal said.
“We’ve handled it in a very good way. The (Norwegian) biathlon federation and all the teammates have been absolutely fantastic and people have been incredibly kind.”
Bakken had returned to the sport after a long absence following a diagnosis of myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle, and he had climbed to number 13 in the world rankings.
“The way he came back to the top of the world after two years without training was completely insane. I’ve never experienced anything like that. That drive and that motivation must have been extreme,” Dale-Skjevdal said.
“We were teammates and friends for many, many years, and he was at my wedding. He was a genuine and very good person.”
Giacomel, ranked second in the world, paid an emotional tribute to his friend as well as dedicating a subsequent victory to him.
“I’ve always said that the thing I cherish most about this journey as a biathlete is not the races I was going to win, but the people I got to meet and know along the way. You soon became one of my best friends, with your smile, your humanity, and your mindset. You will always have a special place in my heart, bello,” Giacomel wrote on Instagram.
Bakken’s absence from the Winter Olympics will continue to cast a shadow over the biathlon events in Anterselva, but both the Norwegians and the other competitors are keen to make the competitions a celebration of the sport in his honour.
“No matter how tough it was, everyone knew that Sivert would really have wanted us to continue,” Dale-Skjevdal said.
(Reporting by Philip O’Connor, editing by Ed Osmond)
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