Norwegian Olympian Sturla Holm Lægreid won bronze in the men’s 20km individual biathlon and used his post-game interview to confess to cheating on his ex-girlfriend.
“Three months ago I made my biggest mistake and cheated on her,” he said to an interviewer with the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK).
He said he didn’t care about the Olympics as much as he did about his lost love.
“I had a gold medal in my life... I only have eyes for her.” Lægreid, 28, said as he broke down in tears describing the breakup with the unnamed woman he identified as the “love of his life.”
The biathlete confessed his indiscretion to his girlfriend a week before the Olympics, and he said it continued to haunt him, describing the following seven days as “the worst week of my life.”
The day before his race, he told reporters he wasn’t keen on his chances. “I won’t hide the fact that I don’t have high expectations for myself,” Lægreid remarked. The seven-time world champion won gold as part of the relay team at the 2022 Winter Olympics.
His dramatic explosion was a way to get back his former lover. Lægreid hoped his “social suicide might show how much I love her.”
“Because I am already hated by her, and I hope that maybe it can make her realise how much I love her,” Lægreid said of his last-ditch effort.
He told the Norwegian broadcasters that he had come up with the tortured idea the night before the race, “I had a kind of revelation that I should drop this bomb... Then we’ll see what happens.” He’s still waiting to see if there’s a reaction from his ex, adding, “I have nothing to lose.”
In a recent press conference earlier Tuesday, he had to apologize to teammate Johan-Olav Botn, who won gold in the men’s 20km individual biathlon. “Now I hope I didn’t ruin Johan’s day,” he said of the fellow Norwegian.
“Maybe it was really selfish of me to give that interview. I’m not really here, mentally,” he said.
