Swedish athlete Almida de Val and Oskar Eriksson Photo:VCG

Swedish athlete Almida de Val on mixed double of curling at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics has gone viral on Chinese social media platforms very recently as the news that she asked for leave from work to participate in the Beijing Olympics was posted online.

A Chinese netizen who works in the Shanghai branch of an international company found in her mailbox an auto-reply from a colleague working in Sweden. The college informed others that she was "currently on a leave of absence, preparing for the Olympics until mid February."

It turns out that the Swedish colleague is 25-year-old Almida de Val, who won a bronze medal for curling together with her teammate Oskar Eriksson on Tuesday. The Swedish Embassy in China congratulated the duo for their victory in a post on Sina Weibo on Tuesday. The embassy said this was de Val's first Olympic trip. She won the gold medal of the World Curling Championships in 2017.

The Chinese office of the company Akzo Nobel N.V told the media that de Val began to prepare for the Olympics from the beginning of January and the company totally supports her to compete at the sporting event.

"This is a perfect example of work and life balance," said de Val's Chinese colleague in Shanghai. "Her reason to leave is to participate in the Olympics. It seems like a very ordinary and trivial thing."

The Swedish athlete's case has driven many Chinese netizens to try to understand the real meaning of sports.

"I think she really enjoys her life. After work and study, we all can choose a sports event as our hobby. Fitting into life is the meaning of the sports," one Sina Weibo user wrote. 

Almida De Val had left for Sweden after she completed her competition in Beijing and she will return to work on Monday (February 14).