As the 2022 Winter Olympics; draws towards its conclusion, once again on top of the medal table, Norway sits pretty. It is not just only a one. In a Winter Olympics medal table, Norway has been outside the top four once; since 1992 and topped it in 2002 and 2018. This small Scandinavian country continually out-power much bigger rivals But how does it? Sturla Holm Lægreid of the (predictably enough) winning men’s biathlon relay team by way of an explanation stated that I mean, we have a lot of colds.
Although, it is not a formal climate. Sweden, Austria, and Switzerland have larger populations and benefit from the same advantage and bigger talent pools to draw. China, the US, and Russia always put up; strong Olympic teams according to the Geopolitics, budgets, and population size dictate. What Norway does in winter sport from a young age is an intense focus on grassroots participation.
They are a nation born with skis on, and Norwegian athletes will often joke, but cross-country skiing and biathlon are popular televised sports, and in Norway, there are more than 10,000 local sports clubs. The proportion of children regularly taking part in winter sports in 2018, was put at 93%. Importantly, the focus is on the fun at a young age. They do not keep scores for games involving; small children, but there is a huge active talent pool to move up to the Olympiatoppen for elite sports training as they get older.
