Not just snow: what’s the secret to Norway’s Winter Olympic success?

As the 2022 Winter Olympics draws towards its conclusion, once again Norway sit pretty on top of the medal table. It is not just a one-off. Norway have been outside the top four in a Winter Olympics medal table once since 1992 and topped it in 2002 and 2018. But how does this small Scandinavian country continually out-power much bigger rivals? “I mean, we have a lot of cold,” said a joking Sturla Holm Lægreid of the (predictably enough) winning men’s biathlon relay team by way of an explanation.

It is not simply climate, though. Sweden, Austria and Switzerland benefit from the same advantage and have larger populations and bigger talent pools to draw from. Geopolitics, budgets and population size dictate that China, the US and Russia always put up strong Olympic teams. What Norway does have is an intense focus on grassroots participation in winter sport from a young age.

Norwegian athletes will often joke they are a nation born with skis on, but cross-country skiing and biathlon are popular televised sports and there are more than 10,000 local sports clubs in Norway. In 2018, the proportion of children regularly taking part in winter sports was put at 93%. Importantly, at a young age the focus is on fun. They do not keep scores for games involving small children, but as they get older there is a huge active talent pool to move up to the Olympiatoppen for elite sport training.

“We’re not many people, but we’re a people with passion,” said Mons Røisland after earning silver in the men’s snowboard big air. “There are so many athletes out of Norway and it’s so impressive and inspiring to see what everyone does to be here.”

Norway’s success is not distributed evenly across all Winter Olympics sports. The country leads the