Swedish speed skater who won gold tried new sports and joined the Army so he wouldn't get bored training for Olympics

• Swedish speed skater Nils van der Poel won the gold medal in the 5,000 meters at the 2022 Olympics.
• Between Olympics, van der Poel joined the army, ran ultra-marathons, skydived, and more.

Swedish speed skater Nils van der Poel did not have the usual four-year period between Olympic games.

After finishing a disappointing 14th in the 5,000-meter at the 2018 Pyeongchang games, van der Poel decided to try some new things.

According to The New York Times' Kevin Draper, van der Poel joined the Swedish army, ran ultra-marathons, went sky-diving, partied, biked across Sweden, and more while taking a break from skating.

For van der Poel, it was all an attempt to keep from burning out from training in speed skating, a sport he claims "sucks."

"When you are a professional athlete in a sport that sucks as much as speed skating sucks, you've got to find a way to make it suck a little less," van der Poel told Draper. "And whatever you can get inspired by, you need to find that."

He added: "I had to make it adventurous, because I knew there would come a time when it wouldn't be adventurous no more, when I would lock myself up in Inzell [Germany] for two months just going for it. But I knew if I wanted to endure that, I had to, like, build up a mountain of motivation because I'm going to need that motivation one day."

van der Poel told Draper that training in speed skating is too "monotonous" to do every day. By trying other activities, he found himself able to go back into training with enthusiasm.

That paid off in Beijing, as van der Poel took him the gold medal in the 5000-meter, finishing in 6 minutes, 8.84 seconds, an Olympic record.

In an interview in 2020, van der Poel told the International Skating Union that stepping away from speed skating and trying other activities gave him a fresh perspective.

"Being away from the sport makes you look at it from another perspective … When you're in the army doing recognition, sometimes you're looking at an object for days and days and you start questioning everything: 'Why in the world would I want to skate 400m circles as fast as I can? What's the idea behind that?'"

Despite having interests beyond the ice rink, van der Poel told Draper he may continue to skate, saying he hasn't been able to permanently quit it yet.

"I've been trying to quit two times and I haven't succeeded. I don't think I'll succeed this time either."