People practice the normal sports in Sweden — soccer, basketball, running, swimming — but there are a few Swedish sports you may have never heard of. I’m guessing that tour skating is one of them.
Tour skating was once one of the most popular sports in Sweden, and I hear it’s now making somewhat of a comeback. It’s done on natural ice with long ice skates attached to boots. Many people also use poles. Imagine a blend of cross-country skiing and ice skating.
This winter in Sweden the temperature has practically been below freezing since December. The tour skating afficionados say the ice conditions are superb.
Every year I promise myself that I’ll try tour skating, and every year I bail out. This year is no different, but I thought if I made the promise to do it here that it would give me extra motivation. I recently went out with my family to Lake Mälaren just outside of Stockholm to check out the scene. (As of publishing, I still haven’t tried it myself.)
Lake Mälaren is a beast of a lake. It’s Sweden’s third largest lake that stretches from the middle of the country out east into the Baltic Sea.
For beginners, there are a number of good tour guides that will take you out and teach you this fun and challenging winter sport:
