Gösta Holmér

Who was Gösta Holmér?

Gustaf Richard Mikael Holmér was a Swedish decathlete and inventor of the fartlek interval training technique.

At the age of 21 he competed in the 1912 Stockholm Olympics in his home country of Sweden, where he received a bronze medal in the decathlon. His greatest achievement though was developing the fartlek training technique in the 1930s while coach of the downtrodden Swedish cross-country teams. His concept was faster-than-race-pace and concentrated on simultaneous speed/endurance training. The technique proved successful and has been adopted by many physiologists since.

Holmér died in 1983 at the age of 92.

Gösta Holmér was the father of Hans Holmér, who was Chief of the special investigation unit on the assassination of the Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme in 1986.