The Swede, born in 1968, is a legend on the Racketlon courts. He enjoyed great success over nine years being a high quality player in all four sports, with increasing quality as the sports go on. The sheer number of titles won during this nine year spell is without doubt his biggest Racketlon achievement. When talking with him, he can still recall the ecstasy of his biggest victory: defeating Mikko Kärkkäinen at the 2004 World Championships semi final in Vienna following a run of six successive defeats to his rival and in just their previous battle at the 2004 Finnish Open, Magnus was left devestated fearing he´d never beat Mikko again. So after the match in Vienna 2004 Magnus felt like he was the best player in the world and killed his brain ghost that he had playing against Mikko.
Magnus made his Racketlon debut in 1994 at a fun tournament he played with friends in Gothenburg. Following his retirement from prefessioneal ice hockey, Magnus took up the sport on a more regular basis six years later.
He had said the most fascinating thing about Racketlon for him is the wide array of skills you must have in order to succeed. It suites both his personality and overall athletic skills.
In his eyes the future of Racketlon is very bright and while it is still in its infancy, he hopes that one day it can be as big as Tennis is today.
Another Swed in the Hall of fame is Pär Carleke. Pär is born in 1958. His best sport is Squash and his strength on the court is a “not-give-away-unnecessary-points-defensive-style”.
Winning the World Champs team gold medal for Sweden and three World Champs titles and some other wins on the World Tour in a row without losing one match as a veteran are his greatest achievements. His biggest victory was when he won the Swedish Nationals in 1998 with beating the dominant player by that time, Peter Bittas. The year after h tried to defend his title but after a three month flu and losing 10kg he lost in the first round.
Pärs first tournament were the Swedish Championships in 1991. Over 200 participants played in the same category and the different sports were played at different places all over Stockholm. Pär won five matches and lost in the quarters after having to fly to Stockholm three times! After that he organised his own tournament in Karlskrona, Racketvirtuosen, for 15 years from 1991-2005. The last four years it was won by Magnus Eliasson.
The fascinating thing about Racketlon is that you can always find something to improve quite significantly compared to when you are specialised in one sport. When you get tired of one sport you can switch to another.
In his opinion Racketlon will continue to grow. Everyone who has played either of the four sports is a potential Racketlon player.
Born in 1963 in Frülunda, Sweden, Lilian is the only women in the Hall of fame. Her best sport is Badminton, followed by Tennis, Squash and Tabletennis. The list of achievements is long and contains more than 20 World Tour titles, several World Champs titles in singles and with the Swedish national team and 30,5 month of leading the womens world ranking. Her biggest victory was her third World Champs title in Singles in Vienna 2005. The answer “I don´t remember” on the question on her biggest defeat is evidence of her mental strength.
When Lilian saw a TV recording from the Swedish Nationals in 1998 she thought this one was for her. As she played Badminton half professional for many years and tried the three others sports for fun she won her first Swedish National title out of seven straight wins in 1999.
A good thing is when you are able to improve your sport. When Lilian had played Badminton for many years she had her peak seasons and didn´t improve much. But in the other sports she could improve immensely from the start and for many years to come, so the training was fun all the time.
Lilian ranks the future of Racketlon as a bright one – everyone just loves the sport the minute they get familiar with it, whether it is as an active player or as a spectator. With the high standard of the Elite players no one can dispoute these athletes are top notch and with the Racketlon rules where every played point counts the match is exciting from the first point played.
Next into the Hall of Fame comes Svatopluk Rejthar (Svata) representing the Czech Republic. Born in 1952 and after being active in many different sports as a child, he began playing racket sports when he was 30 years old. His best sport was Tennis, followed by Badminton, Table Tennis and Squash.
Although he has won several medals in senior categories, Svata is not part of this Hall of Fame for his medals earned on the court, but rather because since 2005 he has organised international tournaments of such a high level of quality. His tournaments are often credited as the best on the FIR World Tour, with a tell tale sign of this being the ability to always attract an especially strong women´s category. His biggest victory was putting on the first ever European Championships in 2016 with 320 players participating the tournament was a huge success. On top of this, Svata is also doing a lot to make Racketlon more popular in the Czech Republic and abroad.
In contrast to these successes, his biggest defeat took place on court when he lost in the second round of the World Championships in Vienna in 2005. After a superbly played Tennis set (21:4), a Gummiarm was played to decide the match and unfortunately while chasing a ball Svata slipped on the surface (carpet with granulate) and missed the ball!
Earlier that year he made his debut on the Racketlon courts playing in the first Czech Open. In sport Svata prefers versatility and diversity and he admires athletes who excel in multiple disciplines. “Racketlon is like sex, once you start you can’t stop it” was the slogan on t-shirts of some participants of the first Czech Open.
Looking to the future of the sport, Svata thinks Racketlon needs two things: one is to ensure the keeping of the organisation, the rules and the competition and the other one is to get money into the game. Both are important and have to perform on a high level to advance Racketlon.
Born in 1948, Swedish Lennart Eklundh is our next entrant to the Hall of Fame. Like Svata Rejthar, Lennart has been bestowed this honour as an organiser. He first played Racketlon when he arranged the first Swedish National Championships at Enskede Rackethall.
He says it´s fantastic to have been part of the last ten years seeing international Racketlon develop to the level it has reached today. Other than the organising, Lennart reached the Senior´s final at the World Championships in Zürich in 2013, and in London in 2014. Lennart’s strongest sport was Squash, followed by Table Tennis, Badminton and Tennis. Unfortunately his biggest defeat took place at the World Championships in Zürich in 2013 when he had to retire in the final due to a bronchial catarrh and high fever.
The Swede says Racketlon is the most challenging sport he can think of! It´s fascinating how a match can turn due to four different sports. With regards to the future of Racketlon, Lennart says that it was a fantastic international development for the first ten years and now we have a stable base to stand on. The next step is to be officially recognized as a sport in more countries and also with big international organisations. This will make it possible to grow the sport further in the world. This will take a lot of time and effort on the international scene but maybe it’s even more important to get more countries organised at “home” first. He knows there is hard work ahead but he thinks we have a great group in FIR now working to achieve the next step in developing this fantastic sport! Lennart keeps his fingers crossed!
FIR regrets to hear that Peter passed away earlier this year. Although no longer active on the Racketlon world stage, the memory of him as one of the co-founders of Racketlon will live on.
“The real Mr. Racketlon” – that is how Lennart Eklundh describes Peter Landberg, and the Swede born in Stockholm in 1959 is our next entrant to the Hall of Fame. Peter Landberg organised the first Racketlon tournament in 1989 before the name Racketlon was even founded. 32 players competed to see who the strongest racket player was. One year later, in 1990, he organised the first Swedish National Racketlon tournament which was a fantastic success. It was at that stage he registered the name Racketlon with a patent and the rest is history!
Peter wasn´t only good at the organising side, he was also successful as a player! With the background of being a former elite Squash player, along with being a solid amateur player in the other three sports, he became Swedish National Champion in 1991 and 1995 when he managed to turn a deficit in Badminton into a win against Pär Carleke. When asked about his biggest defeat, Peter said he doesn´t remember losses!
The Swede thinks Racketlon is having fun multiplied by four. He believes Racketlon is a fascinating sport and difficult technically as it´s a huge challenge to bring together all four racket sports with quite different techniques. Unfortunately, Peter hasn´t followed all top players on the tour, but for him there are only two players that are able to handle this challenge – Jesper Ratzer and himself!
Peter says Racketlon is definitely here to stay and has become an established sport. He dreams for Racketlon to become an Olympic sport in the future, but for this to happen he thinks the Gummiarm rule will need to be replaced by something even better.
Jan Vercammen bio
