“You’re a hoax. (…) You are worthless. (…) You are praised. You are naive to think that you have meant something to Swedish cross-country skiing.” The words are taken from the very first page of Charlotte Kalla’s autobiography “Skam den som ger sig”, which was published on Tuesday. The person who has said these words is what Kalla herself refers to as the “Skamrösten”. The inner voice. The feeling of shame runs like a common thread through the book, because it also does so through her career. OPENS UP: In her autobiography “Skam den som ger sig” Charlotte Kalla reveals much that few have known. Photo: Anders Skjerdingstad / news – It has been exhausting. It has been very tiring, says Kalla when news meets her in Stockholm in connection with the launch. She has often wondered where the voice is coming from. – It is something I could never think about anyone else, but still I have been able to talk like that to myself, and a lot because of the results, that they were not sufficient, says Kalla. 22 medals: “Just luck” She has three World Cup golds, three Olympic golds and a total of 22 international championship medals. Five more than Gunde Svan, and thus by far the most of all Swedish cross-country skiers of all time. “You’ve just flown, you’ve had a lot of luck,” is the inner voice’s explanation for that feat. – Deep down, I know that these are just stupid, mean thoughts that come to me because I doubt, she says to news. The results lists are far from the only thing she has been ashamed of. Charlotte Kalla was ashamed that she was not present enough when her parents divorced. She was ashamed that she had heart palpitations when she did her first ski race with asthma medicine. And she was ashamed when she was involuntarily kissed on the mouth during the Idrottsgalan in 2008, as if she could have done something about it. Bjørgen: – Very sad. She was terribly ashamed of two breaches of the reporting obligation in the last year before the Olympics in Beijing. And Kalla was ashamed to tell anyone about the shame. Therefore, she expects that many people will be surprised by what is now coming to light. – Yes, as I have never spoken openly about this, and there are very few people around me with whom I have been honest about what has sometimes been going on in my head, she confirms. SURPRISED: Marit Bjørgen had no idea that Charlotte Kalla was troubled by feelings of shame. Photo: Anders Skjerdingstad / news Among those who have not known anything, and who are definitely surprised, is Kalla’s Norwegian competitor and friend Marit Bjørgen. – I actually have an image that she has been very confident in herself and enjoyed the sport. I had a feeling about it, so I have to say I’m a little shocked, and I think it’s very sad. That’s it, says Bjørgen when news tells her what Kalla has said and written. Something Charlotte Kalla was often and a lot ashamed of was that she was not able to lose as much weight as she had planned with the trainers. In her biography, she reveals that, like so many other top athletes, she has had a problematic relationship with food and weight. Was told that she was chubby – It is only during this book process that I have understood that I had periods of relative lack of energy, she says to news. “Relative energy deficiency” in Swedish is what is called “RED-s” in English and “relative energy deficiency” in Norwegian. In short, it means that the body does not get the energy it needs to carry out the work it is set to do. BEST IN THE WORLD: When Charlotte Kalla guided Marte Monrad-Hansen and Therese Johaug to silver and bronze in the junior WC in 2007, she had no idea that others saw her as chubby. Photo: Primoz Lovric / NTB The fact that body and weight became a topic that preoccupied Kalla came, among other things, from a remark she received after becoming junior world champion. “It’s really quite incredible that you could win gold in the Junior WC, you were quite ‘possible’.” Possibly can be translated to chubby/overweight in Norwegian. – I was very shocked and surprised. I think it was very unpleasant that I hadn’t reflected, or discovered, that I was chubby at this time, says Kalla and continues: – It was a voice that made me doubt myself. If I really had the right self-image. Because I had never seen myself as chubby before, she continues. This was the start of a negative spiral that followed the Olympic and world champion throughout her sports career. Struggling to keep the weight goal Kalla talks about how she worked with body optimization in consultation with the trainers, but also about how she struggled to keep the weight goal she had set herself. She weighed all the food she ate, but it didn’t help. It led to periods of comfort eating – and again felt a sense of shame because of it. “I wanted to throw up what I had eaten, I tried and tried. Took in. But it didn’t work,” she says in the book. – What does the voice in your head say to you when you don’t reach your weight goal? – That I didn’t make it. That I haven’t worked hard enough. That I should have made even more of an effort, says Kalla. – Despite the fact that I have managed to get in shape. I have taken medals. Nevertheless, my experience is that I did not arrive in time. And it has been very special working on the book and talking to the team around me, who have certainly not seen it as failure. In their reality, I really did make it in time. FAR DOWN: During the WC in Seefeld in 2019, Charlotte Kalla felt she had no chance against lighter types of runners and considered withdrawing from the relay. Then she delivered a great stage for the Swedish team that won gold. Photo: Fredrik Sandberg / NTB Would have done things differently Now she realizes that the problem was probably never that she ate and weighed too much. On the contrary. – I definitely believe that I would have achieved even better results if I had succeeded in having an even more relaxed attitude, says Kalla. Marit Bjørgen believes the same, who has seen several sportswomen suffer from a constant energy deficit during their careers. – I think perhaps Charlotte’s career could have been even better if she hadn’t been aware of how much weight she should have. When the body is in deficit, you don’t get back for the training you do, you don’t get development. So I think it’s very sad to hear, says Bjørgen. The fear that she could not become a mother Missing menstruation can be a sign that the body has a relative energy deficit. In the book, Kalla says that she expected to have a normal period when she stopped taking birth control pills in 2017. But time passed, and the monthly bleeding did not come. After 18 months, she gave up and started contraception again – simply to increase the level of estrogen in her body. It was critically low, which weakened the bone density. Charlotte Kalla feared that she had ruined her opportunity to become a mother. In the book, she talks about the relief when she found out in November 2022 that she was pregnant. While news is interviewing Charlotte Kalla, children’s cries are heard from the next room. Just over three months ago, little Alvin was born. – I don’t know what it would have been like to talk about this topic if I hadn’t had Alvin. It would have been much tougher if I lived in uncertainty, which is now talking about it in the hope that more athletes take energy balance more seriously.
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