Martin Johansson

Martin Johansson (born 26 September 1984) is a Swedish orienteering, ski-orienteering, and cross-country skiing competitor, a medallist at the orienteering world championships, and a 2004 Junior World Champion in relay. He received bronze medals in sprint at the World Orienteering Championships in Kyiv 2007 and Olomouc 2008. His brother, Lars, is a member of the Rockford Icehogs

Early life Johansson was born on 26 September 1984 in Avesta, a locality of 15,000 people in Dalarna province of Sweden. He had broken a clavicle at birth, a minor defect which he still carries. Johansson participated in various sports as a child, including hockey, track and field athletics, skiing, and table tennis. Hockey was his favorite sport, but as he was small and skinny (just over 50 kg at the age of 16), he had to abandon it at the age of 13-14. He switched to skiing in winter and running in summer, combining both with orienteering and training in the club IFK Mora. Extensive training gradually his built muscles and success in local competitions, both in ski and foot orienteering. Overtraining put him out of competitions for 6 month before the 2004 season. However, he recovered and won silver in ski relay in Vuokatti 2004 Junior World Orienteering Championship, as well as gold in relay and silver in long distance at the Gdańsk 2004 Junior World foot Orienteering Championship. Although he was a Swedish champion in sprint, he was not included into the Swedish team for the 2005 World Orienteering Championships (WOC) in Aichi, however he was competing for the team in other events. At the 2007 World Orienteering Championships in Kyiv he had collapsed on the long distance run, but amazingly recovered to win bronze medal in the sprint just a few days after that. Before the 2008 World Orienteering Championships in Olomouc he had a serious toe injury, but recovered and again won a bronze medal in sprint. and harnessed the wound using Gueorgiou's shirt and the straps of his GPS device. Then they carried Johansson, who passed out several times in the meantime, to the road where an ambulance car was waiting. After Johansson was on his way to the hospital, Smola, Gueorgiou and Nordberg continued the course. They jogged together finishing at 25th, 26th, and 27th places. Nordberg, Smola, and Gueorgiou finishing the race after aiding Johansson; Gueorgiou has the stick in his pocket.

All of this was witnessed by spectators worldwide who were following the men's relay race, via GPS tracking shown live on the Internet. Foot orienteering races are cross-country, off-rail races and the preferred route choice often is through forests. Thus spectators have limited access on course. Spectators who were watching a map of the race in progress witnessed the strange behavior of the four leaders' GPS tracks – the tracks stopped. Soon Nordberg’s track started moving again, but it went to the road and then to the finish area. Viewer-controlled replays of the race are available for analysis, in a RouteGadget web tool. IOF president Åke Jacobson told Gueorgiou, Nordberg and Smola "What you did today is a great example of extreme sportsmanship and fair play. You are an inspiration for all of us!"

Johansson underwent an operation to clean the infection in his wound. The operation went successfully and already on 26 August 2009 he returned home, praising Hungarian doctors.

World Championships Year Age 15 km individual 30 km skiathlon 50 km mass start Sprint 4 × 10 km relay Team sprint 2015 30 — 25 — — — — 2017 32 — — 19 — — —

World Cup Season standings Season Age Discipline standings Ski Tour standingsOverallDistanceSprintNordicOpeningTour deSkiWorld CupFinalSki TourCanada 2006 21 — 2010 25 136 85 — — — 2013 28 143 89 70 49 — 2014 29 10168 66 28 — 2015 30 80 57 20 2016 31 50 33 15 30 2017 32 62 41 20 — 29