Tove Alexandersson Pre-2026 Zegama-Aizkorri Marathon Interview

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A world champion at six different events ranging from orienteering to ski mountaineering, Tove Alexandersson of Sweden lines up at the 2026 Zegama-Aizkorri Marathon with a new focus on trail running. In the following interview, Tove talks about her past in a variety of sports, her decision to focus on trail running this year, and why she wants to race the Zegama Marathon.

For more on who’s racing, check out our in-depth preview and follow our live race coverage here on the website and on Twitter/X on Sunday.

[Editor’s Note: If you are unable to see the video above, click here to access it.]

Tove Alexandersson Pre-2026 Zegama Marathon Interview Transcript

iRunFar: Eszter Horanyi with iRunFar. We’re here two days before the Zegama-Aizkorri Marathon, here with Tove Alexandersson. How are you?

Tove Alexandersson: Yeah, I’m good. It feels good to finally start racing. So I’m looking forward to it.

iRunFar: This is your first time here. I think the world feels like you’re reasonably new to trail racing, but you’re not actually. You’ve been doing this for a hot second. But this is your first on-camera interview with iRunFar. You’re a world-class orienteer, one of the most successful in the world, if not the most successful. You’ve won world championships in six different disciplines now. Can you just tell us a little bit about who you are?

Alexandersson: Yeah, I come from Sweden, so that is where I grew up, and I’ve always loved to do different sports and to be in the forest and to be in the mountains. So orienteering has always been my main sport and what I’ve been doing most and competing in since I was a kid, but I’ve also done some cross-country skiing and ski orienteering, and also started with the ski mountaineering, and also more trail races and skyrunning races. So I really like to challenge myself and do different things.

iRunFar: Is it fair to say that you just love competing, like whatever the sport is?

Alexandersson: Yeah. And also, I really like the training and doing different things in training, and have this variation, and to just be outside in the mountains and experience new things.

iRunFar: I know that you dipped your toes into trail running in 2017 and you signed up for the Limone Extreme on a whim, I believe. And took two gels and maybe like no water or something along those lines. How have you evolved since then?

Alexandersson: Yeah, so that was my first longer trail race, and it was more like a bit of a vacation trip after orienteering season, and also do a cool race. Ao I wasn’t prepared for it at all. But even if I felt terrible afterward, because I had not enough energy, and so I was really like, “Okay, this was a cool thing to do. I want to do it again, but next time I need to improve and do it better.” And I always had in my mind that I at one point want to do some more trail running and really be focused on it, and see how good I can be if I put my focus on trail running. So to the World Championships last year, I really felt, “Okay, now I want to put some more focus on it.”

iRunFar: So talking about Trail World Championships Short Trail last year, you won it by 30-some odd minutes ahead of the next woman, which was just an absolute huge margin, a hugely dominant performance. Is that what tipped the balance to you wanting to focus on trail running, being like, “I could actually be really, really good at this?”

Alexandersson: Yeah, I had planned that I wanted to do some more trail running this year. So even if I hadn’t had that performance at the World Champs, I had wanted to do this year with more trail running. So yeah, that was the plan, but I wasn’t really prepared to do such a good race.

iRunFar: Because you’d won the Canfranc-Canfranc Marathon ahead of that, where you’d hit your head, gotten some stitches on course, and then still set a course record, did that give you confidence going into that World Championships that “I’m real quick?”

Alexandersson: It didn’t tell me so much because with the course record, I didn’t know who was running the race before. So for me, I was going into a race quite open-minded, and I didn’t know exactly what to expect. But for me, it’s like the course itself was a big challenge for me, so I wasn’t focusing so much on other competitors. I was more like, “Okay, let’s try to do this in as a good way as possible, and yeah, no more falls and just come to the finish line in a good way.”

iRunFar: Well, I think you succeeded.

Alexandersson: Yeah, yeah, for sure. I’m super happy with that race.

iRunFar: Then after that, you went straight into skimo season to try to qualify Sweden for the Olympics. You took no break. Have you taken a break since then?

Alexandersson: No, not any real break. I hit my knee quite bad during the winter, so then I had been forced to take a two-week break, but otherwise I haven’t taken any real break, but I think it’s good to do it, but mentally I just like to train and be out in the mountains.

iRunFar: And rest is for people who can’t think of anything fun to do, right?

Alexandersson: Yeah.

iRunFar:  You signed with Salomon earlier this spring, and you’ve raced the Grand Raid Ventoux [50k] and won that. Was Zegama always a priority race for you when you decided you wanted to focus on trail racing this year?

Alexandersson: Yeah, I think so because when I started to do some trail races like Limone, I was going a little bit more into trail races and had to look at the different races, and like Zegama really felt like a race, okay, at one point I really want to do this race. Yeah, Zegama was definitely one of these races I want to do.

iRunFar: What makes it so appealing?

Alexandersson: Oh, to just like experience it, and also I wanted to run some of the bigger races in Europe, and there is Zegama, definitely. And I really like this marathon distance as well, and also, like you heard so much about the atmosphere and the people and everything. So it will be so cool to finally experience everything around this race.

iRunFar: I believe you’ve been in Zegama for about a week and a half now. You’ve gotten out on the course. What do you think of it?

Alexandersson: It will be a really cool race, and we will see what the conditions will be. I think it will be quite wet and muddy. So I think it will be a really challenging day on Sunday, but yeah, I’m looking forward to it. It’s a really cool course, and it’s really steep downhills, but also some more runnable parts. I think it has everything.

iRunFar: In terms of you as a runner, which parts do you think play to your strengths versus weaknesses? What are you looking forward to?

Alexandersson: I think the variation is good for me because I think I’m good at everything. So I think it’s good for me to have like a mix of everything.

iRunFar: Do you have a specific plan going into it, splits you want to hit, or are you just going to play off how you feel?

Alexandersson: No, I don’t have any special plan. I think is good to have run these race once before to really make a good plan, but I hope I will do it well and not run too fast in the beginning because I think that’s always can be a risk in these kinds of races.

iRunFar: Yeah. Well, good luck out there, and we’ll see you at your first Zegama.

Alexandersson: Thank you. I’m looking forward.

Tove Alexandersson Pre-2026 Zegama-Aizkorri Marathon Interview by Eszter Horanyi.

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