Joepie, November 1978: ABBA goes sports!

For several days, Benny had not been feeling especially well when he went to see a befriended doctor in Stockholm. Had he simply been working too hard or was there really something wrong? That question had already caused Benny several sleepless nights and it still took quite some time before he finally gathered his courage and went to see his friend. The diagnosis relieved all Benny’s fears. “What you need, is some more exercise,” his friend told him. “You are a bit stressed, that’s all...”
Benny: “I have never felt this relieved in my entire life. But this little incident still got me thinking: aren’t we all working way too hard and aren’t we asking too much of ourselves? During a meeting, we discussed this subject and everyone was convinced right away: we should get more exercise!”
And he kept his word: barely one day later, he became a member of a tennis club in Stockholm.
Benny: “I had been playing tennis before with Frida, but at the club I got genuine champions as my opponents. I sweated like a horse and the next day my muscles were completely stiff. But I’m feeling much better now. I go there at least once a week, if I’m home that is...”
Lovely wife Frida chose a more relaxing kind of sports: jazz dancing. She became a student at the Stockholm Ballet Academy where she gets two hours of tuition every other week.
Frida: “I’ve always been interested in jazz ballet, but I never had the time for it. Now that we are taking the time to do some sports, I decided to sign myself up. The plan is that I will be demonstrating some of these dance moves next year on our upcoming tour.
Björn even went as far that he signed himself up for the Lidingö, a marathon of thirty kilometres. Björn didn’t finish first, but he still ran the entire track. “And I think that’s quite an accomplishment for me,” according to Björn. “I have been in training for two weeks for that competition and during that period I have forced up the amount of kilometres. But thirty kilometres is still a lot, believe me. I have to admit that I have walked a couple of kilometres, but I wasn’t the only one. I’m not planning to join these kinds of competitions regularly. I actually did this one more to please the organizer. But these days I do run four or five kilometres every day...”
Anna is now regularly getting into her jogging gear as well to loosen up her legs. “But I would never consider to join in a competition,” she says. “I’d rather determine my own pace...”