For Swedes, participation in Vasa’s run has a similar meaning to the pilgrimage to Mecca for Muslims or the circuit around the sacred Mount Kailash for Tibetans. And just as some pilgrims diversify their journeys for a more intense spiritual experience, Bryntesson also decided to approach his participation in a very unique way.
“It has its difficulties, but I managed to practice it a bit. The idea came a few months ago, during which I tried to adjust the equipment accordingly,” he smiled before the start in an interview with Radio Sweden.
For a crazy venture, he turned the bindings on his skis, and he also had the baskets on his poles turned upside down. He then rode on the track with two guides who secured him from both sides. And although at first glance Bryntesson seems comical in the track, he earned admiration for his performance. In addition to a huge portion of kilometers, he also mastered tricky descents, during which the elite whizzes by at a speed of more than fifty kilometers – in an egg, he simply looked at the road between his legs.
Bryntesson then crossed the legendary finish line near the church in Mora in 9:32 and is in 7853rd place in the results. Which is an incredible result with almost 16,000 starters. And his charitable intervention was also solid – the fans sent 550,000 Swedish crowns (roughly 1,100,000 CZK) to the fundraiser for Ukraine, which will help finance ambulances on the front.
Bryntesson has gold from the Junior World Championships in 2004 in Stryn, Norway, during his active career he won the only SP race – the team sprint in Whistler, Canada in 2009. In 2018, he helped the visually impaired to silver at the Paralympic Games in Pyeongchang Zebastian Modin.