Norway admits Therese Johaug’s “white lie” before the Trondheim World Championships

Norway’s cross-country skiing star Therese Johaug was sick in the run-up to last winter’s World Championships in Trondheim, but the team chose not to reveal it at the time.

National team coach Pål Gunnar Mikkelsplass admitted to the Swedish newspaper Expressen that the public explanation given when Johaug unexpectedly withdrew from the final World Cup weekend in Falun—just a couple of weeks before the championships—was not the whole truth. The official line then was that Johaug preferred to prepare for the World Championships at home, rather than that she was ill.

“Was it a white lie? You could say that,” Mikkelsplass said, explaining that in such situations the aim is to keep under wraps anything that could hinder optimal training and to avoid the “chaos” and excessive attention a reported illness would have generated around Johaug.

Johaug herself has previously said she caught a cold from her daughter, Kristin, roughly three weeks before the championships.

The admission sheds light on the team’s media strategy ahead of the World Championships in Trondheim and confirms that Johaug’s absence from Falun stemmed from illness rather than purely tactical preparation.