Why is tiny Norway so good at sports? It's more than Erling Haaland

https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2026/0710/norway-erling-haaland-soccer-youth-sports-competition-training

by RickJWagner • 5 days ago

17 19 5 days ago

csmonitor.com

bell-cot2• 5 days ago

The traditional conflict between enjoying short-term gratification and reaching long-term goals.

DangitBobby• 4 days ago

In this case it seems like "enjoying the process" might lead to more short and long term gratification.

bell-cot2• 4 days ago

But not short-term gratification for the too-competitive parents of the imagined-potential-elite kids.

(No comparison intended to quarterly-results-obsessed American business exec's:)

fragmede• 5 days ago

Good read. Makes me want to move to Norway.

inglor_cz2• 4 days ago

Beware of the weather, though. It may be geniunely soul-crushing for someone used to sunny skies.

As I am growing older, I also feel a tug to move from Central Europe to maybe the Mediterranean, precisely because of the winters. And Norwegian winters are even more dark and rainy.

xenospn• 4 days ago

Norwegian Summers are actually pretty close to what you would call winter if you grew up around the Mediterranean or California. And Norwegian winters are just a dark, cold, and wet void.

throw83939r0r• 4 days ago

They have unfair advantage, they should be banned!

password54321• 4 days ago

No, this is just pseudo-science and resembles educational research where they try to find a causation to things that are probably just attributed to genetics. Think about genetics determining the size of your engine and motivation being the amount of energy supplied to it.

weezing2• 4 days ago

Their ski jumpers cheated and had almost flying suits instead of regular ones, their cross-country skiers were all "asthmatic" and used clenbuterol. They are kinda famous for systemic cheating at this point.

dpark• 4 days ago

They are kinda famous for systemic cheating at this point.

Is that really a Norway thing or a professional sports thing? Think of all the disqualifications in the Tour de France spanning many nations.

weezing2• 3 days ago

In some sports their whole teams cheated. It was systemic.

petterroea• 4 days ago

Recently there's a few articles critiquing the Norwegian system, arguing that we are going towards the "American model" as described by this article. The second kids are scored, they are relentlessly head hunted and not allowed to be kids.

I guess they still have it nice compared to the US, but is that a Norway thing or a US thing? I bet other countries are similar to us.

charlieyu1• 4 days ago

An entire article that doesn't even mention Magnus Carlsen. Waste of internet bandwidth.

sparky_z• 4 days ago

Sign of the times, I'm sad to say. The Internet is just chock full of them these days. It's gotten to the point where most of the articles on the NYTimes frontpage don't even mention him.

Hugsbox• 4 days ago

This is an outrage. I suggest we create a browser extension that completely omits any webpages that don't mention Magnus somewhere. No more wasted bandwidth, creates an incentive for sites to not have non-Manugs-containing pages. Anyone interested in joining my cause?

moi23882• 4 days ago

Because it’s about sports, not games.

RickJWagner• 4 days ago

If Magnus concluded every match with a rowing/dancing motion, it would be different.

moi23882• 4 days ago

Are they so good? Or does it look like they are because they get medals in Winter Olympics, where they are overrepresented given that there aren’t that many countries which even have a winter?

Why is tiny Norway so good at sports? It's more than Erling Haaland

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