Gothenburg, Sweden; a city of over 600,000 residents characterized by both its old-timey fishing and trading ties, alongside its modern metropolitan area home to the luxury car company Volvo.
Volvo produces a number of high-powered sports cars, including the S60 Polestar, which accelerates from 0 to 62 MPH in 2.2 seconds. However, as Bradley’s track and cross country teams have discovered, Volvo vehicles aren’t the only fast movers that call the city in southeastern Sweden home.
Wilma and Julia Nielsen, Gothenburg natives and two top running rookies for the Braves, decided to leave their home and travel over 4,000 miles to the Hilltop.
“When I visited the school, I liked the team, the environment and [head coach Darren] Gauson driving me around the city,” Wilma said. “It was cute, I liked it here; it didn’t really matter if the school was big or small.”
Gauson remembers being contacted by a recruiting service that provided him with Wilma’s information. He sent Wilma an email, to which she replied back with “lots of questions.” To Gauson’s pleasure, this showed she had interest in the university.
After talking to Wilma and her father, Gauson helped set up a flight to Peoria to show Wilma and her father around the campus and the city. Through continued contact with the recruiting service, Gauson landed on videos of Wilma’s sister, Julia.
“I don’t know how it didn’t come up, but I found out she was her twin, and we had already booked all the flights over here, so I was bummed that we couldn’t have both visits at the same time,” Gauson said.
After touring and also getting a peak of the team, Wilma relayed the positive experience she had on the visit to Julia and to her parents, who were quite hesitant about their daughters living overseas. Eventually, they all got on board with the idea of Bradley being the sisters’ new home.
“It was good having Wilma and her dad visit here because they must’ve done a good job describing what Peoria was like to Julia,” Gauson said. “We were lucky to get both of them to come here.”
Once on campus, the sisters began to adapt to the new environment. Getting past the language barrier was the first part, but having grown up learning English as a second language, they were prepared for the challenge.
Other adaptations, such as different training periods and not being able to cook for themselves, was something both girls had to adjust to.
“The food is the big thing; it’s good because you can kind of eat healthy, but when you can’t cook yourself, it’s hard because maybe you don’t like what’s made,” said Wilma.
Despite all this change of scenery, one thing has stayed constant: the success of both sisters in the field of competition.
Through three weeks, Wilma has racked up two MVC Female Track Athlete of the Week awards, broken a school record in the 800-meter run and has added a pair of first place finishes on the track alongside a team-best seventh place finish in the only cross country meet of the season.
Wilma’s exceptional performances have also earned her some recognition around the campus.
“I was very shocked,” Wilma said. “Somebody yesterday in Geisert said, ‘Oh, are you Wilma?’, and it’s been teachers too.”
In addition to Wilma’s success, her sister Julia has shown that she can be a strong addition to the Braves’ success as well. In her only race so far, Julia placed second in the 800-meter run, finishing just behind her sister.
“I was just happy to get that first 800 in the books and see how I can improve that by [the] next competition,” Julia said.
Even more proud of their performances so far is Gauson, a former international athlete himself.
Gauson knows that especially in a season where COVID-19 limitations make adapting to a new country and program especially hard on international athletes, the success of Wilma and Julia is highly uncommon.
“To be honest, most freshmen, especially international, will be pretty stable but decline a little bit freshman year because of the new country, food, dorm, school and being away from Mom and Dad,” Gauson said. “For them to come in and click immediately is actually pretty rare.”
