Andreas Almgren's latest race was 10,000 meters in the European Championship in Rome at the beginning of June, where he, despite a successful start to the year, missed a medal.
Then his body said no. A stress reaction in one shinbone ruined the entire summer for Almgren. He did travel to Paris, but there he made the tough decision to opt out of the Olympic Games.
In Sunday's comeback in the cross-country European Championship in Turkish Antalya, Almgren hung on for a long time in the leading group. But when Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Italian Yemaneberhan Crippa increased the pace with a couple of kilometers left, it became very lactic acid in the legs of the 29-year-old Stockholm native.
After 7,834 meters of running, he finished fifth, three seconds from a bronze medal and 18 seconds behind gold medalist Ingebrigtsen. The Norwegian won in the end, eight seconds ahead of Crippa.
Afterwards, Almgren could not be anything but pleased with his performance, which came without any major attempt to peak.
I'm much better than I was at this time last year, a very good base to build from, he says to SVT.
Andreas Almgren saw the European Championship race as "a good guest appearance", but also said that he longs to compete on the track and road again. Next on the schedule is 10 kilometers on the road in Valencia in about a month. Then Almgren also hopes to run 3,000 meters in the indoor European Championship in Dutch Apeldoorn at the beginning of March.
But the big goal awaits in Tokyo in September.
What's important next season is the World Championship in Japan, everything I do now is to optimize there, he says.
