We’re excited to announce that Emilia Nilsson Garip is this year’s winner of the Eva Hedberg scholarship for artistic sports. The scholarship was awarded based on athletic merit, potential, curiosity, and drive. Emilia is a Swedish diver, turning 18 later in April, has already competed in the World Championships (2019, 14th place at age 16), and she is aiming to grab a spot in the Olympics already this year. Svexa will support Emilia with direct funding, and also offer her help and guidance concerning training planning, and recovery.
Nils Hedberg – Chairman of the Jury: “Emilia has already established herself as one of the best in the world at junior level. We hope that this scholarship can be part of her further efforts towards the absolute elite and the major championships. Emilia shows a will to constantly develop and improve, which makes her an extremely worthy recipient of the award.”
Emilia – awardee: “I’m really excited to received this scholarship, it will help a lot in my development, and especially getting back into the competition routines when it starts again.”
Ulrika Knape Lindberg – Olympic Gold medalist and Director at Swedish Swim Sports: “From the first day she started her diving career, Emilia has shown an inherent love for the sport. During training and competition, she always radiates an outstanding joy where you can see that diving is her great passion. Emilia is something of a natural talent. Her charisma and her aesthetics are what characterize her diving. She constantly wants to develop in order to perform better. She is seen as Swedish Diving’s biggest talent and promise since Anna Lindberg (five-time Olympian and 6-time European Champion).”
Eva Hedberg was an elite rhythmic gymnast who won the first three Swedish championships in the discipline and competed in several world championships. Her later work was devoted to education, especially for future teachers in sports, health and special education. In her memory and in her spirit, in 2020 Svexa established the Eva Hedberg scholarship for artistic sports.
Both during her own active career and many years thereafter, Eva was a driving force in the development of the sport in Sweden. Throughout her life, she was active and curious about new opportunities, an important trait for being able to succeed in elite sports. The activities ranged from tennis and golf to cross-country skiing and long-distance skating. She also started rock climbing – as a 73-year-old!
By passing on her knowledge, she strived to improve the conditions for the next generation. She did so at an elite level and has been awarded the prize Best Educator of the Year from Uppsala University.
The scholarship amount is SEK 10,000. In addition, the scholarship entails additional support corresponding to an equal amount in the form of help from Svexa’s experts in, among other things, sports performance, training theory, tests and technology, which means that the scholarship’s total value is SEK 20,000.
