Eva Urevc returns today:

With her massive muscles and explosive speed resources, Slovenian Eva Urevc was compared to Marit Bjørgen, among others, by, among others, then-coach Ola Vigen Hattestad, in the great 2018/19 season.

– She resembles Marit Bjørgen in shape and body features. Eva is extremely explosive, strong and muscular, then-Slovenian national team coach Ola Vigen Hattestad told Dagbladet.

Then Slovenia believed it saw the outlines of a new sprinter in the era of the great Petra Majdic. Urevc had scored some sensationally superb prologue wins on par with the winning differences of Johannes Høsflot Klæbo and former Björn Lind.

After all, Urevc had bolted to the cross-country elite in record time, investing in rowing shortly before delivering some best-format sprint prologues.

Then Eva Urevc disappeared from the background circus for over a year, after, among other things, a disappointing World Cup sprint in Seefeld, which was ruined by bad skis.

Instead, her teammate Anamarija Lampic seized the opportunity to outshine Urevc, and did so with two individual World Cup victories last season and third-place Sprint Cup combined.

This is where Urevc planned to be. But in its place came adversity, where Lampic made the breakthrough.

– it was way down

The message of terror arrived in August 2019: Urevc had to operate for a painful knee injury and lost the entire 2019/20 season. Since then, he has been absent from the World Cup circus.

– The first two months after the operation were very tough mentally, but that’s life. There are ups and downs. This was a great recession. I was way down but now I can look ahead and up, says Slovenian cross country skier Eva Urevc tells Dagbladet.

Today, however, he is back on the starting line for the first time since March 2019 when the World Cup season opens with a classic sprint at Ruka in Kuusamo.

– I’m ready for a comeback in Ruka this weekend, confirms the 25-year-old.

– How is your form now just before your return?

– It’s pretty good and will be even better with more cross-country skiing on the body.

– What are your expectations for the return?

– I’m better at freestyle than classic, so the first goal should be to get out of the prologue. So I have to go step by step after that. I don’t want to push myself on my first ski run after such a long hiatus. But I can say that I have big goals for this season, reveals Urevc to Dagbladet.

– How big then?

– Very big!

– Are you even stronger than the last time you competed?

– Yes, it’s me, answer in cash.

• Sergei Ustyugov is not going to Ruka and has been sent to Russia, Dagbladet reports. Read why here:

Sent home – for medical checkup

I tried other sports

Urevc did not give up despite the knee injury and surgery. The big long-term goal is the World Cup at home in Planica in 2023.

The Slovenian cross-country ski star has a special history and career path: he struggled with motivation issues in his junior years and switched sports several times, including rowing and biathlon.

– Eva struggled with motivation for a couple of seasons before settling down with herself in spring 2018. She was so tired of skiing that she opted for rowing, in fact. He also did some biathlon for a while. Eva was unmotivated, but took a stand against herself after being shipwrecked for the Olympics. Shortly after, winning 10 kilometers in the Slovenian championship, Hattestad had already told Dagbladet about Urevc from the moment he trained her.

Read more about Eva Urevc’s special story here: