Team Europe: Lukas Högberg

July 17, 2014

Tatum Vayavananda

“I want to succeed. I love competing, I love to be in the arena. That’s what drives me every day and all my fans and supporters around me help keep me focused.”

Fans love Lukas Högberg’s showmanship.

Even under the heaviest physical stress, the Swede and second-place finisher at this year’s Europe Regional is known for his charismatic performances and boosting the crowd’s spirit as he pumps his arms, shouting for feedback and feeding off the energy.

“I’m the kind of guy who wants the audience to feel a part of it, and I feel that people know me more now because of my performance,” Högberg said.

Following top-10 finishes on Days 1 and 2 with the exception of Event 2—the max-distance handstand walk— when he finished tied for 36th, Högberg gave the show of his life to the Ballerup Arena on the final day, taking first place in Event 6, finishing the brutal down-and-back 50s chipper in 20:51.

“When I perform, I usually mess up one thing and people think I’m out of the game and it drives me to come back, kind of like the underdog,” Högberg said of his Event 2 performance.

Högberg’s true comeback started in 2013 when he had to withdraw from the Europe Regional due to illness.

“(While in the hospital), I knew I wasn’t finished and that I could actually make it,” said the 23-year-old, “so the first thing I thought about when I woke up was how to recover and get back to training for the next CrossFit Games.”

He added: “I didn’t get broken down from it. I just wanted to compete. I knew I loved it.”

Högberg trained the next year certain he’d find himself at the Europe Regional again, competing for a ticket to the Games. He focused on volume, intensity and skills, and sought the guidance of Numi Snaer Katrinarson, 2012 CrossFit Games competitor, as a training partner.

“We started to think about regionals nine months before,” Katrinarson said. “We knew that the Open wouldn’t be a problem, so our plan was to train straight through unless we saw otherwise.”

“My goal was to peak during the regionals and show everyone I don’t suck,” Katrinarson said. “His goal was always the Games.”

Eleven years his elder, Katrinarson became a bank of wisdom and knowledge for Högberg.

“For the eight months we trained, he’d always ask me, ‘Numi, where do we do this? Numi, when are we going to do this? Numi, how do I do this?’” Katrinarson laughed. “Everything was, ‘Numi, Numi, Numi.’ I think he liked getting taken care of.”

“But Lukas is a very special guy, a wonderful kind of person,” Katrinarson continued. “He says hi to everyone in the gym, doesn’t matter who it is, even when he doesn’t have the time, and he is always really polite to everyone he talks to.”

The two benefitted from training together.

“He always pushed my training and commitment,” Katrinarson said. “He mentioned he would never do that work by himself; it is impossible to stand alone with that kind of volume. (Early in the year) he started dedicating everything to CrossFit.”

Högberg trained full time in 2014, and since qualifying for the Games, has been training with Jonne Koski, first-place Europe Regional finisher, under the guidance and direction of Mikko Salo—the only European man to earn the title Fittest on Earth—and Jami Tikannen, a staple to the European CrossFit community and coach to two-time CrossFit Games champ Annie Thorisdottir.

“When it comes to CrossFit, (Koski and Högberg) have been training their asses off since the regionals and they are better now than they were,” Katrinarson said. “I know they are going to do well and at their level, between the newer guys who will be going to the Games, I know these guys are more skilled and stronger than those guys from the U.S.”

For Högberg, the trip to the Games is as much about competing with his friends and bringing the show into the arena as it is about the podium.  

“I feel more like me, Björgvin (Karl Guðmundsson) and Koski are more like a team,” Högberg said of the other two Games qualifiers from Europe. “For me, it’s not about beating them at the Games, and if I can inspire their performance I’d like to do that.”

“I want us to have a good time, be able to train together, create a great atmosphere for training, and create good spirits with us in Europe and a way to be the best at the Games, together,” he added.

“I want to succeed. I love competing, I love to be in the arena. That’s what drives me every day and all my fans and supporters around me help keep me focused.”