Are: Swedish resort boasts long, storied history

Scrunched down in his train seat, Orle closed his eyes to catch a snooze during the two-hour ride from Trondheim, Norway, to Are, Sweden, on Friday. The Norwegian teen sported green New Balance tennis shoes, gray sweatpants and a blue-speckled knit hat that barely covered his white-blonde hair. The tassel from his hat just grazed the side of his blush-from-the-cold cheeks as he glanced up to make sure his competition rifle was safely stashed in a wooden lockbox in the luggage rack above his head.
ARE, Sweden — Scrunched down in his train seat, Orle closed his eyes to catch a snooze during the two-hour ride from Trondheim, Norway, to Are, Sweden, on Friday. The Norwegian teen sported green New Balance tennis shoes, gray sweatpants and a blue-speckled knit hat that barely covered his white-blonde hair. The tassel from his hat just grazed the side of his blush-from-the-cold cheeks as he glanced up to make sure his competition rifle was safely stashed in a wooden lockbox in the luggage rack above his head.
    Had it not been in Scandinavian country, Orle easily could have been an American kid headed for a hunting trip with his grandfather.
    Instead, the teen was fresh off the plane from the biathlon Junior World Championships in Martell-Vall Martello, Italy, and was headed to a town outside of Are where he lives and trains as a biathlete.
    Ski sporting thrives in this area. It’s simply what you grow up doing.
    “Are you going to the championships in Are?,” he was asked. “Of course. I just live nearby.
    “Bode Miller will be there, right?” he asked the American journalists.
    The Norwegian teen differs from an average American teen in that he knows exactly who Bode Miller is and probably even knows where he ranks in the World Cup standings. An American kid might be able to guess that Bode Miller — America’s current best-known alpine racer — isn’t an NFL athlete on a multiple-choice question.   
    Orle was traveling a route similar to the one Norwegian Vikings probably took when they traveled east through the Are area to explore the landscape of their Swedish counterparts, according to local historians. And in the 12th century, Are’s old Church, Gamla Kryka, was built along an important pilgrim route in which people from all over Europe stopped in the town on their way to Saint Olav’s tomb in Norwegian Nidaros, now Trondheim.
    But the ski-resort town in which 1,000 people now call home really came to life with the opening of the railway in 1882 after Are gained a direct link to Stockholm and other cities, according the Are2007.com.
    Tourists flocked to Are, including the royal family, who came to enjoy the skiing and snow-covered peaks. Visitors also came for the hunting, fishing and the "pure air." Many hunting lodges were built between 1880 and 1915.
    In 1921, Are hosted Sweden’s first downhill race. It took some racers about 9 minutes to complete the course because they had to make their own tracks in the rough pistes, according to the Web site.
    Another downhill course was built for the World Championships in 1954, improving conditions for faster race times, too. Norwegian Stein Eriksen dominated the male races and Are's own Sarah Thomasson won a bronze slalom medal.
    Ingemar Stenmark, Sweden’s all-time greatest skier and the World Cup all-time wins leader, helped to bring Are to the international ski racing scene by winning five World Cup races in just four years and finishing in the top five three other times there in his career.
    Are is again the international center stage for the World Championships, and a whole new generation of ski racers is anxious to tame the pistes that both challenged and helped propel racers in the past.
    The next 16 days of competition will be teeming with stories of triumph, heartache and surprise.
    No doubt Orle will be in the stands. After all, it’s a way of life.

MORE FUN FACTS ABOUT ARE AND THE 2007 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
 Are is a classic alpine racing resort, hosting more than 70 World Cup races throughout the years.
• 65 participating nations
• 350 athletes
• 1,600 volunteers
• 100,000 visitors
• 1,500 journalists
• 600 hours of TV broadcasting time
• 40 km net
• 70-meter jump in the downhill race

(Source: Are2007.com)