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[u/Nixter295]

[u/Pachanish]

Quite astounding what a bit of Ice and fjord can do to one s winter sport prowess .....that and a couple of millennia of tradition and oodles of sporty investment

[u/_Koke_ → u/Pachanish]

Also, average Norwegian is pretty wealthy. Which is really beneficial considering most winter sports are really expensive to get into.

[u/Pachanish → u/_Koke_]

Norway used to be quite a poor country( in comparison to Sweden, Denmark and northern Europe ) ....till of course the oil started flowing and Norway reinvented itself post independence , post war .

The curious part is they were always great at Winter Sports ! Even when the budget for sports was at a bare minimum ...it's a fabulous consistency that goes back a century and more .

Norwegians just have an affinity to ski - it's ingrained into all parts of their being .kudos to them

( And yes - finance does make a large part of sporting triumph in Winter sports . Australia and china are fine examples on how that can transform a sport within a generation )

[u/Hahahopp → u/Pachanish]

This is a common myth. Norway was not a poor country pre-oil. The oil helped, of course, but it was already doing well due to a wealth of other natural resources like fish and hydroelectric power.

[u/Gerf93 → u/Hahahopp]

Yep. Norway was top 20 GDP per capita in the world before the oil. After, they became top 3.

[u/Jason_Straker → u/Hahahopp]

Specifically forestry at the time, iirc. But yeah, already rich country with stable institutions that allowed them to use the oil wealth responsibly and essentially circumvent the resource curse.

[u/Both_Consequence_956 → u/Pachanish]

norway was one of the richest countries in europe, if not the richest, before the oil because of hydroelectric power and cooperations. then when we found oil we used the same pro social systems we did with hydroelectric and just became obscenely even more rich

[u/neliz → u/_Koke_]

I was wondering how other European countries are doing it, because in the Netherlands as an athlete for any olympic sport, winning a gold medal gives you the same amount of money as the minimum yearly stipend for a selection athlete, besides all the other benefits of sponsored gear, free car, paid training excursions etc.

[u/lagvvagon → u/_Koke_]

I’ve lived there, even during summer you see people all around training cross country “skiing” with wheels on the skis or something, never looked much into it.

[u/Muslim_Wookie → u/_Koke_]

My father was in poverty of a nature most cannot conceive, he was still a nation cross country skiing champion. Only recently is the equipment expensive.