{"id":419812,"date":"2026-02-11T11:46:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T11:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/419812\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T11:46:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T11:46:12","slug":"it-is-hard-to-forgive-former-girlfriend-of-norwegian-olympic-biathlete-responds-to-apology-for-affair-winter-olympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/419812\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It is hard to forgive\u2019: former girlfriend of Norwegian Olympic biathlete responds to apology for affair | Winter Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"

The former girlfriend of the Norwegian biathlete Sturla Holm L\u00e6greid has responded to his public apology for having an affair, saying it \u201cis hard to forgive\u201d what he did.<\/p>\n

It was after L\u00e6greid had won bronze in the individual 20km on Tuesday that he, unprompted, opened up on what he described as the \u201chardest week of my life,\u201d saying: \u201cHalf a year ago I met the love of my life. The world\u2019s most beautiful and nicest person. Three months ago I made the mistake of my life and cheated on her, and I told her about that a week ago. This has been the worst week of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

The woman, who wants to remain anonymous, wrote to Norwegian paper VG<\/a>: \u201cIt is hard to forgive, even after such a public declaration of love in front of the whole world. I have not asked to be put in this position and it is hard to be there. We have had contact and he knows my feelings about this.\u201d<\/p>\n

L\u00e6greid is one of the best biathletes in the world, having won gold in the relay in Beijing four years ago and amassed 14 world championship medals. This week though, his apology overshadowed everything else he has achieved.<\/p>\n

His former girlfriend thanked \u201cmy family and my friends who have embraced me and supported me during this \u2013 and to all others who have thought about me and sympathised with me, without knowing who I am.\u201d<\/p>\n

She did also point out that Tuesday belonged to Sivert Guttorm Bakken, the Norwegian biathlete who died just before Christmas last year. \u201cIt was moving to see how Sivert was included in the victory,\u201d she said, referring to how the winner of the race, Johan-Olav Botn, shouted \u201cwe did it Sivert!\u201d into the TV cameras after crossing the finish line.<\/p>\n

L\u00e6greid has been criticised for the timing of his apology and said late on Tuesday: \u201cI sincerely apologise for revealing this personal story on a happy day for Norwegian biathlon. I am not myself and not thinking clearly.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe apology goes to Johan-Olav who deserved to have all the attention after his gold. And it goes to my former girlfriend, who has been put in the media spotlight without her wish, I hope she is doing OK. I can\u2019t redo this, but I want to put it behind me and focus on the Olympics. I will not make any further comments about it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former girlfriend of the Norwegian biathlete Sturla Holm L\u00e6greid has responded to his public apology for having…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419813,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-419812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}