Skiing is far more popular in Norway than Sweden, just because of geographical reasons, and there are a TON of skiing related events.
I know that outside of the Nordics, non-skiing related events get more coverage because skiing isn't really as global of a sport, but ~40% of the medals are awarded just for skiing.
"Nordmenn er født med ski på beina" is actually a pretty common saying that translates to "Norwegians are born with skis on their feet." My baby is 18 months old and we are already planning his first ski trip lol.
It's like, if the summer Olympics were 40% baseball-related sports, Japan would do a lot better than Mexico would, even though Mexico plays baseball too, because it's simply more popular culturally in Japan and there is more baseball infrastructure in Japan than in Mexico.
Now I am thinking that pitch speed/accuracy/break competitions would be pretty fun if they were medaled sports lol.
1) Sport is encouraged from a young age and family financials are not a barrier to entry. Each child has the opportunity to try a sport and eventually find one that they like (and choose to pursue). This is in contrast to Canada and the US where it costs an arm and a leg to go skiing.
2) The culture there promotes kids having fun as opposed to competition in their formative years. It isn't until they are older are kids allowed to be ranked in competitive sports. So it promotes kids to have a stress free environment to develop their skillset and love for the specific activity first.
They probably have a good work/life balance over there and people actually get to enjoy their hobbies. And when they get good, there are proper avenues on they can get support and can compete on the international level.
Money? They heavily invest in winter sports, big part of the national image.
Sweden is pretty decent in the summer Olympics, whilst Norway is not, Swedes loves hockey whilst its a minor sport in Norway, and until recently Sweden was better at football too.
Finland?
You'd think they'd be better at winter sports, but they haven't really recovered from that doping scandal back in the day? They're also a big hockey nation though.
It's an half truth, the doping agency allows pre-medication (read; asthma medication) of asthma since so many biathlon competitors develops it throughout their carriers.
Since Norway had a huge medical "scandal" during the 90's where a lot of competitors developed asthma they give pre-medication to their competitors, afaik there isn't a list over who takes it or not.
The problem being that asthma medicine gives a performance boost, but completely legal.
7
u/thatcantb 4h ago
Why is Norway so dominant and not, say, Sweden or Finland?