The Olympics are supposed to be the purest distillation of the athletic ideal: Competitors from across the world meet in one city to vie for world domination, or something like that. After a week and a half of the Pyeongchang Games, our new sports overlords come from Norway.
Norway! Norway is far from a global power, a nation of a little more than 5 million known for its extremely laissez-faire attitude toward commercial whaling. But as the U.S. sits fifth in both gold medals and total medals, Norway not only leads second-place Germany 33-24 in total medals, but it’s set a new national record for medals with time to spare. And it’s not like this is an aberration: In Sochi, the Norwegians tied for first in gold medals and were third in total medals, and they’ve been in the top six in total medals in every Winter Olympics dating back to 1992. Dating back to the first Winter Olympics in 1924, Norway has won more medals than any other country.
So the American media are confronted with an important question: How are the Norwegians holding their own against larger countries like Germany, Canada, the U.S., and whatever we’re calling Russia these days?
There’s no shortage of discussion of Norwegian dominance. Sara Germano and Ben Cohen of The Wall Street Journal say it’s because the Norwegians are so chill. Dan Wolken of USA Today says it’s because they don’t keep score in youth athletics. Dan Wetzel of Yahoo is simply in awe, not only of Norway’s medal haul, but of the stunning good looks of cross-country skier Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo.
There’s something to be said for all three explanations: We, as Americans, would probably be better off if we were a little less uptight. If we’re teaching children sports for development purposes, we probably do pay too much attention to wins and losses. And Klaebo, a two-time gold medalist in Pyeongchang, is a fine-lookin’ man.
But none of those tells the whole story.
In their 2009 book Soccernomics, Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski used the tools of social science to explain the state of international soccer, and sports more broadly. In a chapter called “The Curse of Poverty,” they ranked various nations’ standings in popular international sports, from baseball to soccer to Formula One, then totaled up the scores. Their top five countries were the United States, the USSR/Russia, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France—all countries with at least 65 million inhabitants. But when adjusted for population, Norway lapped the field; nobody is better at sports per capita.
“[T]he main thing the top of our rankings demonstrates is wealth,” they concluded. Richer countries tend to produce better athletes for several reasons, ranging from government and corporate investment in sports, to the fact you need leisure time to get good at sports, to childhood nutrition (kids who eat better grow up to be bigger adults). Eight of their top 10 sporting nations were in the top 23 on the U.N.’s human development index, which measures life expectancy, wealth, and education, among other factors.
Crucially, from a sports perspective, Norway is rich as shit. Norway was no. 1 in the human development index when Soccernomics was published, and still is today. Wolken mentioned that fact in his story, but it’s not a piece of trivia; it’s the key to Norway’s success. And not only is Norway rich; income inequality isn’t as bad there as it is in other wealthy but more stratified societies like Qatar or even the United States, so a larger pool of people are beneficiaries of the national wealth. That includes national investments in sports and physical fitness.
“It’s Norwegian government policy that every farmer, every fisherman, no matter where he lives in the country, has the right to play sports,” Kuper and Szymanski wrote. “Norway will spend what it takes to achieve that. Just as supermarkets have sprouted all over Britain, there are all-weather sports grounds everywhere in Norway. Even in the unlikeliest corners of the country there’s generally one around the corner from your house. Usually the locker rooms are warm, and the coaches have acquired some sort of diploma. A kid can play and train on a proper team for well under $150 a year, really not much for Norwegians.”
The implications of such a policy are obvious from a general sporting perspective, to say nothing of the general health and wellness benefits of having a physically active population. But wealth provides another advantage when it comes specifically to winter sports. Expensive coaching and training helps summer athletes, but the equipment you need to play basketball or soccer is relatively cheap. For track, all you really need is a flat parcel of land. Almost every sport contested in the Winter Olympics requires expensive equipment, or more crucially, specialized facilities that might exist in only a handful of places in the world: ice rinks, curling sheets, ski resorts, ski jumps, and so forth. Six of Germany’s 24 medals so far have come in luge, and the Germans won gold in the only bobsled event contested so far, men’s two-man, in part because they have more world-class tracks than any other country on Earth. Norway has 72 speed skating ovals. The Netherlands, which won 23 of a possible 32 speed skating medals in Sochi and 13 of 27 so far in Pyeongchang, has 44 speed skating ovals. The United States, with more than 14 times the population of Norway and the Netherlands put together, has just 10.
But infrastructure isn’t the only explanation, either. Norway’s won six medals in alpine skiing, with a team that includes two all-time greats—Kjetil Jansrud and Aksel Lund Svindal—and surprising 25-year-old Ragnhild Mowinckel. Mowinckel arrived in Pyeongchang having made two podiums in a five-year World Cup career, only to win two silver medals in three starts over the course of a week.
Mowinckel and Jansrud, also a medalist in Pyeongchang, are examples of the other way Norway is getting the most out of its relatively small population: Norway’s best athletes compete in sports that allow them to win multiple medals.
The reason Michael Phelps is the most decorated Olympic athlete ever isn’t because he was better at swimming than, say, LeBron James is at basketball. It’s because Phelps’s specialized skill set translated to eight different events in a single Olympics. Canada’s two strongest sports are curling and ice hockey, which between the two require more than 50 athletes to contest the five medals available. America’s best athlete in Pyeongchang, Chloe Kim, can contest only one medal, while Klaebo is contesting four. So is Marit Bjorgen, a cross-country skier who’s medaled in all four of her events so far in these Olympics.
The three most decorated Winter Olympians ever are all Norwegian: Bjorgen, biathloner Ole Einar Bjoerndalen, and cross-country skier Bjorn Daehlie. All three compete, or competed, in sports with several individual events and at least one relay, allowing them to rack up multiple medals at a single Olympics.
In Korea, Norway took silver in the mixed biathlon relay; all four members of that team medaled in individual events, and there are two more relays to come. Of the 30 Norwegians who have taken home an Olympic medal in 2018, 15 have won at least two. The only Americans with more than one medal so far are Alex and Maia Shibutani, who won bronze in both ice dancing and the team figure skating event.
The 2018 Olympics are too far along for the U.S. to catch Norway, but there’s still time to make up ground by the Beijing Games in 2022. All the U.S. has to do is dramatically reduce income inequality, invest heavily in athletic facilities, and retrain its best athletes in sports with the greatest potential to earn multiple medals. Oh, and be more chill, too.