This article is a study of technological change in cross-country (XC) skiing in Sweden from the late nineteenth century to the 1930s. While technological development in sport is usually seen as a linear and predetermined process, it is instead treated in this context as an arena where wills and intentions – grouped under the concepts of nostalgia and intensification – are negotiated. Nostalgia, in this sense, reflects a scepticism of innovation and change based on contemporary civilizational and rural-romantic concerns, whereas intensification represents the total mobilization of resources to improve sporting performance. The article shows that in its beginnings at the end of the nineteenth century, XC skiing expressed a romantic vision of a distinctive Swedish national landscape where skis were to be made using traditional and old-fashioned craftsmanship. In the early twentieth century, however, XC skiing changed and became progressive. The traditional Swedish skiing landscape was abandoned and the sport adapted to international conditions to enable Swedish athletes to compete successfully abroad. In other words, skiing was intensified because of the mobilization of resources by the Swedish Ski Association in close cooperation with the Swedish ski industry, which was then in an expansion phase.