By Nicholas Moreano
At a young age, kids are introduced to sports that can potentially have a huge effect on their lives. That was the case for Iowa sophomore tennis player Carin Runefelt.
Around the age of 5, Runefelt was introduced to gymnastics and a year later started tennis and skiing. But gymnastics was the sport that resonated with her.
“Gymnastics was definitely my favorite sport,” she said. “I loved it more than anything.”
She said her favorite events to compete in were floor and vault, but vault was by far her favorite because of the flying, running, and adventure.
Runefelt is from Stockholm, Sweden, and gymnastics isn’t a sport that creates a lot of opportunities down the road. At one point, she was competing in tennis, skiing, and gymnastics all at the same time — and at an elite level.
Runefelt was faced with a tough decision at an early age — competing in gymnastics or give up the sport she loved for a playing career that can last longer than gymnastics ever could. Going into the sixth grade, Runefelt quit gymnastics. A year later, she did the same with skiing.
It was a tough decision for the multisport athlete but one she needed to make.
“There’s no future in gymnastics, especially not in Sweden; that’s just how I saw it,” Runefelt said. “It was a sport [tennis] that I could do for longer, and I can continue doing it.”
In tennis, Runefelt excelled.
For four years, she competed in the Salk club in Elitserien, the highest division in the Swedish tennis series. In 2012, she won the regional championship for U16 in doubles and was runner-up in singles.
She then went on to be a runner-up in the regional championship for U16 in 2013 and was runner-up at Nationals in doubles for U18 in 2014. She was also a captain of the women’s tennis Regional Outdoor Series Division 2, in which the team won the title.
When Runefelt came to visit Iowa for international orientation, her old gymnastics days followed her.
She was waiting in line when she turned around a noticed a woman wearing a Peterson shirt, the dorm that Runefelt lived in, and made small talk with her. It turned out that the woman was a gymnast at Iowa. The two ended up becoming best friends and a year later live together in an apartment with two other gymnasts.
The one thing that Runefelt misses the most about gymnastics is getting the thrill from competing and trying new things.
“I was very fearless; I loved trying new things,” Runefelt said. “In gymnastics, you can learn new skills, like a new twist, and that’s what I loved the most.”
Even though Runefelt no longer competes in gymnastics, she said she wouldn’t go back and do anything differently because she wouldn’t have met all the people that she did while competing in tennis.
“I honestly think that with tennis, especially in Sweden, I have so many great memories that I would never have had in gymnastics,” she said.