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Swedish silver Olympic Games medallist Emma Johansson(Image credit: Bert Geerts)

An interview with Emma Johansson, September 23, 2008

In only her third full year as a professional cyclist Emma Johansson is emerging as one of the riders to beat. Her first two years with Bizkaia-Panda Software-Durango, where she rode as a stagiare the year before, and Vlaanderen-Capri Sonne-T-Interim were followed by a move to the Dutch AA-Drink team for 2008. This move to a much bigger team has seen her results improve considerably, culminating most notably in an Olympic Games silver medal from Beijing, China in August.

"No, it's not bad at all," laughed Johansson on the subject of her Olympic silver medal. Since the Olympic glory Johansson has had no time to rest on her laurels. A 10th place in the Grand Prix Plouay was followed immediately by overall victory in the Trophée d'Or Féminin, including a stage win on the penultimate day. This victory was a first in her career, but also marked her as a rider for the others to watch.

A brief week at her home in Belgium afterwards was followed by the Tour Cycliste Féminin International Ardèche, where she was on the podium on all but the time trial stage and finished fourth overall. "I didn't get a stage win that I was hoping for," she said. "Overall I just felt really good and that's the most important now, that I have a good feeling about being on the bike and that racing's going well and I can just keep on doing what I'm doing and be relaxed for the Worlds and just that I know my shape is good and I can't really do anything more about that. It's nice to be able to do some good results and feel that you're feeling strong."

As Swedish champion against the clock, Johansson will once again be taking the start in the time trial on Wednesday. She doesn't expect however to be competitive, but the extra kilometres should serve as a warm up for the weekend's main event. "I'm doing the time trial so that's..." she hesitated, "I did it last year and the year before. It should be good to get another race, it's not like that important for me but - it's more for the road - but it's good to get one more race.

Johansson's current AA-Drink team effectively finishes at the end of this season, as it looks to concentrate more on cyclo-cross and other local areas. With an Olympic silver medal and a stage race victory under her belt this season, one might think that she would have a contract signed for next year. This however is not the case, but the young Swede is relaxed about the situation and confident about her immediate future.

"There's a lot of rumours that are going on," she explained. "But I haven't signed anything. I've been talking to some teams but nothing... I'm not going to stand without a team, that's the most important thing I think. There's been so many things that's been going on and I've been racing a lot as well, to Beijing and then coming back, Plouay and the Trophee d'Or and then back here and then a week here in Belgium, but that was just… I was really tired and the first days I was just lying in bed, and then I recovered and then I did Ardeche and then it's just a week and then it's the Worlds. It's really busy and I had a really busy programme this year.

However, with her country taking just four silver (another of which was taken by Gustav Erik Larsson in the men's time trial) and one bronze medal from the whole games, the media interest has been phenomenal. "In Sweden if you see what I've done - I was second on a race and everyone's just crazy about it," she said. "Then you can see how big the Olympics is. Of course if I could win the rainbow jersey that would be even bigger.

Such publicity, and demands for her time, can be draining on a rider though, especially one preparing for another big target on the horizon. "Sometimes it's really tiring as well because when you think about winning a medal you don't think everyone's going to start to call you and want to come down to see how you have it in Belgium, make reportages about you," said Johansson. "In one way I wasn't prepared for this, but now we've found a way to handle everything and now we can just enjoy it.

"Like if I'd been second in the Worlds - last year I was sixth in the Worlds [she crossed the line in sixth place, but has since been upgraded to fifth after the disqualification of fourth placed Russian Svetlana Bubnenkova] and it's a good result, but maybe they wrote about two lines in the newspaper about it," she added. "Taking a medal, suddenly everyone knows who I am. It's a big difference and that's only because it was the Olympics."