The woman behind the Eleiko barbell

In September 1950, Eleiko's founder died suddenly during a trip to the UK. He left behind a factory, two young sons, and a wife who had never run a business in her life.

Tyra Johansson was 44 years old. She was advised to sell.

She didn't.

It started with steel

Algot Johansson founded the company in 1926. He began as a 16-year-old apprentice, trained as an electrician, and built everything with his own hands. The name Eleiko came to him on a walk through Halmstad — a combination of the words electrical and mechanical.

But from the beginning, the real expertise was steel. Machining it, forming it, finishing it to precise tolerances. The company produced electrical products — stoves, radiators, restaurant equipment — yet what set Eleiko apart was always the metalwork behind them. By 1949, the local press described it as Halland's only all-round industry in the electro-technical sector.

Among everything the factory produced, the electric waffle iron stood out. Algot developed, refined, and patented his own design — the only person in Sweden to hold patents for them. Many adjustments were required before they baked evenly without burning. That discipline — refine it until it's right — became the factory's working philosophy. Eleiko waffle irons are still in use today, including at our own sport centre.

Tyra takes the lead

When Algot died, key staff left. The factory needed capital it didn't have. Tyra had no formal training in business. What she had was clarity.

Her philosophy was simple: protect employment, broaden the range, build for the long term.

Early in her leadership, she approached the company's bank for a loan. The bank director did not offer her a seat. He told her to sell the company.

She left without the loan. She did not sell.

She found another bank. One that said yes. The business had its capital. That bank kept Eleiko's accounts.

Under Tyra's leadership, production stabilised and expanded. At its peak, the factory was producing around 10,000 waffle irons a year alongside its broader range. She ran the company for over a decade before bringing her eldest son home to help carry it forward.

A dream of a better barbell

The barbells of the 1950s bent under heavy loads. Some broke entirely, occasionally injuring the athletes holding them. It was a problem the sport had accepted as inevitable.

Hällström, the factory supervisor, didn't accept it. He believed Eleiko's engineering could produce something the sport had never had — a barbell that would actually hold. He took the idea to Tyra. She gave him permission to use the factory machines.

Working with Ovako — the same Swedish steel producer that had supplied the factory since the 1920s — they developed a specially hardened steel formula. Strong enough to bear enormous loads. Elastic enough to return to perfect straightness after flexing under them.

For the knurling — the grip pattern pressed into the shaft — Hällström looked no further than the factory around him. The pattern was inspired by the waffle iron.

In 1957, Eleiko introduced its first Olympic barbell.

A family company

In 1959, Tyra called her eldest son home. Stig Edebalk was 20, training as an electrical engineer in Germany, when his mother asked him to return to Halmstad. He came back as workshop manager.

Eleiko became a mother-and-son operation: Tyra leading the finances and strategy, Stig on the floor and among the lifters. As the bar found its audience in Sweden's competitive lifting community, Stig founded Kraft Klubb Eleiko — the Eleiko Power Club — a weightlifting club built around the brand and the people who trained with its bars.

It was proof of something that still holds today: Eleiko doesn't observe the sport from a distance. We're part of it.

Stockholm, 1963

The World Weightlifting Championships came to Stockholm in 1963. It was the first time an Eleiko bar was used at a world championship.

The bar had been gaining quiet attention — but it had not yet been proven in front of the world. At the time, it wasn't unusual to replace 15 or more barbells over the course of a single competition as they bent or failed under heavy loads.

Stig Edebalk was in the hall when Yuri Vlasov — the dominant force in the sport, a four-time world champion and the first man to clean and jerk over 200 kg — approached the bar for an attempt at 212 kilograms.

The Eleiko bar endured the entire competition. Not a single bar was replaced.

After the final lift, the team loaded an Eleiko bar with 300 kg and left it in a rack under load for the remainder of the championship. When the weight was removed, the bar returned to perfectly straight.

In front of every federation official, coach, and athlete at the World Championships, the bar had proven itself.

Tyra Johansson set out to keep a company alive. She built something that changed a sport.

The bars made in Halmstad today carry the same philosophy she and Hällström brought to the first one: refine it until it's right.