Lars's Story
Fast Facts
Sport: Cross-Country Skiing
Events: Sprint Freestyle, 15km Classic
Olympic History: Beijing 2022
Highlights: 8th at 2019 Norwegian Junior Champs 15km freestyle
Coach: Ånund Lid Byggland
Year Born: 2001
State Born: Oslo, Norway
About Vik
With a Norwegian father and Australian mother, Vik began skiing and racing in Norway, where he lives near the famous Holmenkollen Ski Stadium in Oslo. He started to show performance potential in his late teens, improving from 26th at the Norwegian national juniors in 2018 to 8th at the national juniors in 2019.
Finishing high school in 2020, Vik was set to start training with the Australian Team at Falls Creek during the 2020 Australian winter, but these plans were curtailed by pandemic travel restrictions. Instead, Vik met his teammates and made his World Cup debut in Ulricehamn, Sweden in February 2021 - where he teamed up with Mark Pollock to finish 13th in the semi-final of the team sprint.
In the 2021-22 season Vik had some solid races at Continental Cup in December, with his best results including 33rd in the freestyle sprint in Goms, Switzerland and 45th in the 15km freestyle in St Ulrich am Pillersee, Austria. His best World Cup performance came in the freestyle sprint at Lenzerheide, in which he finished 71st - less than seven seconds outside the top 30.
Prior to that season, Vik had achieved his best results in distance events. However, he made the switch to focus on shorter events at Beijing 2022.
He made his Olympic debut as a 21-year-old in the sprint free and finished as the second-best Aussie in the event behind Phil Bellingham.
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