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.
