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Cross-country skiing is a popular TV-sport in Sweden and several skiers have become sports heroes due to media representations. However, media events on TV have traditionally portrayed female and male athletes differently. Audiences’ attitudes can be influenced by repetitive representations when certain affects are connected to certain bodies. In this article I investigate how female and male cross-country skiers are portrayed in public service TV in Sweden (SVT), using material from the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in Lahti, Finland, 2017. The aim is to find out how the skiers are positioned with affect in anecdotes about them and how this contributes to intimization. The concept of affective positioning is used as a theoretical framework in this study, which involves a discursive production of identities through the meaning-making practices of expressing affect. The results reveal that there are asymmetries between how the female and male skiers are positioned with affect. Affective practices about the female skiers mostly position them with mental strength and sometimes in a personal discourse, as mothers, whereas the male skiers are only positioned in a professional discourse with both mental and physical strength and with the affect humour. Since the narratives are created asym-metrically media representations reproduce different notions about how female and male athletes are supposed to be, which femininities and masculinities are considered to fit in the sporting discourse.