Racing up and over steep alpine terrain is not typically an off-the-couch event, but when Johanna Åström entered her first Skyrace in the summer of 2019, on a whim, she came second. A month later, the 24 year old unknown from Sundsvall, Sweden, broke the course record on the most technical skyrace of the Migu Run Skyrunner World Series and was a serious contender for winning the overall Series. A training injury unfortunately sidelined her from the final event. Although she’s a member of the Swedish Ski Mountaineering team, and grew up cross-country skiing and orienteering, the athletic Åström doesn’t see herself as particularly competitive. She just wants to have a good time, and test herself, and by some quirk of genetics, (and a sense that, if she were an animal, she’d be a reindeer or a mountain goat), running straight uphill fits her definition of a good time. Farm life and helping her father milk the cows as a child taught her the simple truth: you become good at what your practice. In 2019, she moved to Åndalsnes in the rocky technical mountains of Norway to practise ski mountaineering and skyrunning, and loves that all she needs to access the most amazing training arena in the world is a pair of shoes. When COVID-19 cancelled the 2020 World Skyrunning Series, she felt grateful for the health and wellbeing of people she cared for, and adapted to the chance to train and scamper around the mountains of Norway, offering that “Sometimes the adventure is closer than you think!”

Achievements

• 1st, Tromsø Skyrace, with a new course record (2019)
• 1st, Matterhorn Ultraks Extreme Skyrace (2019)
• 4th overall ranking, World Skyrunning Series (2019)
• 1st Norwegian Championships, Vertical Running (2019)
• Member of Swedish national Ski Mountaineering team
• 1st, ISMF World Cup 2018 – Vertical Race, Font Blanca
• 3rd, ISMF World Cup 2019 – Vertical Race, Disentis
• 4th, 5th and 5th, ISMF World Championships 2019 – Vertical Race, Team Race, Individual Race, Villars Sur Ollo