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Orienteering World Champion Olav Lundanes reacts strongly to the award of the Egeberg Honorary Award to Therese Johaug.
HONORED: Therese Johaug received an award for her achievements on the ski slope and on the running track. Photo: Heiko Junge
The 33-year-old has ten World Cup golds and four European Championships gold on his list of merits and is one of Norway’s top endurance athletes. Lundanes finished as No. 30 on VG’s Top 100 Athletes list of 2019. He believes the honorary award has lost all its prestige after Therese Johaug received the award.
– I have great respect for the results and Johaug’s career, but when you spend a year admitting that you, as an athlete, are responsible for what you have in your own body, then you are not a good sports model. That is perhaps the most important rule in anti-doping work, writes Lundanes on his Twitter account.
Add to NRK:
– I think that’s very inappropriate. If we are to continue like this, we can only put the anti-doping work.
CLEAR SPEECH: Olav Lundanes believes Therese Johaug should not have received the award. Photo: Ole Kristian Strøm / VG
The background is that Johaug did not admit guilt at the press conference where it emerged that he had presented a positive doping test in 2016. More than a year later, he told TV 2 that it was his personal responsibility. Lundanes believes this is not good enough and claims that the case has caused a terrifying change in attitude in terms of what a positive test is.
Egebergs Ærespris is awarded to an athlete who can aim for the first position in international championships or the World Cup combined and has excelled in more than one sport. The athlete must also be a good role model for the basic values of the sport. Therese Johaug has excelled on the ski slope and has gold in the National Athletics Championships in 10,000 meters. She doesn’t care much about criticism.
– They must be allowed to mean what they want to say. I have great pleasure in training and racing, Johaug responds.
– She has been found guilty of negligence, not intent, there is a very clear difference, says committee leader Børre Rognlien in an interview with NRK.
The committee consists of Børre Rognlien, Brit Pettersen Tofte, and Odd-Roar Thorsen.
In recent years, the Egeberg Honorary Award has been awarded to Birgit Skarstein, Odd-Bjørn Hjelmeset, Mariann Vestbøstad Marthinsen, Nils-Erik Ulseth and Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen, among others.
