On January 3, 2022, the athletes who were training at the Sierra Nevada High Performance Center encountered a surprising scene. Three training tapes with Norwegian flags and signs appeared in the gym indicating that they were for the exclusive use of Jakob Ingebrigtsen, Olympic champion in the 1,500 meters and his brothers. The ribbons, of the highest quality, had been placed there by the Norwegian Olympic Committee. A metaphor for what is happening these days in world sport. Norway, a nation with fewer inhabitants than Madrid, is conquering, sport by sport, the international sports elite. Its economic power breaks down any limit when it comes to seeking means for preparation. And the results are coming steadily, week after week. Tobias Foss has just become world time trial champion. Nobody expected it. Foss, 25, hadn’t shone this season. He was 54th in the Giro d’Italia and has not participated in either the Tour or the Vuelta. The victory of the cyclist born in Vingrom, a small town of 500 inhabitants, was a monumental surprise … except for one factor. His nationality. Norway is climbing to the top of world sport and not progressively. He is doing it abruptly, accelerated. Just yesterday, his compatriot Soren Wærenskjold won the same test in the Under 23 category. Let’s go back a few hours. Premier League match between Wolverhampton and Manchester City. In the 16th minute, Erling Haaland, a left-hander, scores a great goal with his right foot from outside the box. He surprises no one. He has scored 11 goals in seven games and is the top scorer in England with five goals difference. The 22-year-old Norwegian striker is becoming the most valuable footballer in the world. A week earlier, there was another of the Viking nation’s assaults on the power of world sport. In New York, the final of the United States Tennis Open is played. On one side of the track, Casper Ruud, born in the capital, Oslo, 23 years ago. Opposite, Carlos Alcaraz. The match ends with the victory of the Murcian, the new king of world tennis. At the end of the game, Norway can already boast of having the number 2 in the world. Let’s keep going back. Two days before the final of the US Open another grand final is played. The best athletes in the world meet in Zurich. It’s the final of the Diamond League. Jakob Ingebrigtsen, Norwegian, stars in another of his exhibitions in the 1,500 meters, one of those races in which he takes the lead and sets a hard, progressive pace, which is taking down his rivals. As he did a month before at the Europeans in Berlin. Ingebrigtsen, who turns 22 tomorrow, for the throne at 3:29.02. The best world brand of the year. Karsten Warholm is the other diamond of Norwegian athletics. Last year he achieved at the Tokyo Olympics one of the most impressive marks in the entire history of athletics, comparable to Bob Beamon’s 8m90 or Usain Bolt’s 9.58. The Norwegian hurdler, born 26 years ago in a town, Ulsteinsvik, achieved a mark of 45.94. A good time for the 400 meters … without hurdles. This year, despite the injuries, he has been able to be European champion in Munich. Magnus Carlsen is another of the media figures in Norway. He was soon recognized as one of the precocious talents in international chess and became world champion at just 22 years of age. A decade later he is still the absolute king. The 31-year-old chess player from Tonsberg, however, is going through a crisis of motivation. Related News standard No cycling / World Cup The Norwegian Foss eats the giants José Carlos Carabias standard No Athletics Katir stands up to the irreducible Ingebrigtsen Javier Asprón Where is the key to the sudden rise of Norwegian sport? Sports schools? Early detection of talents? Ergogenic substances? The fact of having become one of the world’s largest economies (oil has drastically changed Norway’s potential) means that when sporting talent is detected, there is no limit to the means available. Concentrations abroad, state-of-the-art technology, trainers, state-of-the-art machines in gyms, physiotherapy, sports medicine… The Norwegian Olympic Committee has unlimited budgets for the preparation of athletes. This year, at the Winter Olympics, his greatest harvest came: 16 gold medals and leaders of the medal table above Germany, Russia and the United States. In the opinion of Raúl Chapado, president of the athletics federation, the secret lies in the selection and the undoubted commitment to the best. «They work and focus above all on the great talents. They focus their efforts on them, even with a lower density of athletes and specialties than in other countries, such as France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany or Spain. Ingbrigtsen and Warholm are, according to Chapado, the spearhead of his new athleticism. “Norway emerges with two geniuses, two young and talented athletes, escorted by a group of top-level athletes… that denotes a good identification of talents,” concludes the former triplist. There is one last factor that explains the sudden growth of Norwegian sport. The contagion. The emergence of leaders in different sports is generating a domino effect that reinforces the faith in victory of young Norwegians, in very different sports. Faith in their own abilities, very Viking, does not seem to fail them either. Warholm said it this summer at a press conference. “The truth is that I was born with a huge ego.”
