Norway’s trio of superstar sportsmen currently lighting up the world stage
Erling Haaland, Karsten Warholm and Kristian Blummenfelt are just three of the names from the tiny Scandinavian nation making their mark not only on the world scene but with history-defining performances, and not just in the traditional winter sports. So what's going on, asks Olympics.com.
Erling Haaland, Jakob Ingebrigtsen, Karsten Warholm, Lucas Braathen, Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, Kristian Blummenfelt, Johannes Thingnes Boe, Viktor Hovland, Casper Ruud, Alexander Kristoff, … if you wanted to start an article with all the SEO hits of some of the world’s current top sportsmen, this list ought do it.
But what’s more interesting is this – all these athletes are from Norway.
The accolades of this current crop include not-very-arguably the best footballer in the world right now, Manchester City’s Erling Haaland; Karsten Warholm, Olympic gold medallist, world champion and world-record holder in 400m hurdles; and triathlete Kristian Blummenfelt, Olympic and world champion, and the fastest Ironman finisher in history… in his first attempt at the distance.
And, as of Friday 9 June 2023, there's a two-time tennis Grand Slam finalist set to appear in the Roland Garros semi-final trying to make it three, in Casper Ruud, the world number five ranked golfer, Viktor Hovland, a yellow jersey wearer from the 2020 Tour de France, cyclist Alexander Kristoff, and the more likely world-leading wintersports athletes, alpine skiers Lucas Braathen and Aleksander Aamodt Kilde and biathlete Johannes Thingnes Boe.
From a population of five-and-a-half million, that’s quite the return in medalware.
Olympics.com takes a look at these surely-to-be icons of their sport and ponders if Norway’s focus on encouraging kids to enjoy sport – known as idrettsglede, literally the joy of sport – in which, among other things, organised sporting teams can’t keep score until participants are 13, and children are not pushed to specialise in a single sport too early, could be one of the reasons why.
As Tore Øvrebø, Norway’s director of elite sport, told Time magazine at the close of PyeongChang 2018: “We want to leave the kids alone. We want them to play. We want them to develop, and be focused on social skills. They learn a lot from sports. They learn a lot from playing. They learn a lot from not being anxious. They learn a lot from not being counted. They learn a lot from not being judged. And they feel better. And they tend to stay on for longer.”
Erling Haaland – superstar soccer sensation
Footballer Erling Haaland surely needs no introduction, but it goes something like this: In his first season in England’s stacked-full-of-world-stars-already Premier League, the Manchester City striker broke the record for the most goals scored by a player in a single campaign, with 36.
His 52 goals in all competitions for 2022-23, which could increase when his side take on Inter Milan in the Champions League final on Sunday (11 June), easily eclipse the previous record of 44 scored both by Ruud van Nistelrooy for Manchester United in 2002-03 and Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah in 2017-18.
A record-breaking 82 per cent of members of the Football Writers’ Association voted for the Norwegian to win the usually hotly-contested Men’s Footballer of the Year award for 2022-23, ahead of Arsenal’s Bukayo Saka and Haaland’s team-mate and compatriot, Martin Odegaard, who came third.
"To win the Football Writers' Award in my first season in English football is an honour," Haaland said in a statement. "I try every single day to be the best I can be, and to be recognised like this means a lot to me.”
Born in Leeds, West Yorkshire, to his Premier League playing dad, Alfie Haaland and former heptathlete mum, Gry Marita Braut, by the age of three, Haaland had moved with his family back to Bryne, his parents’ home-town in Norway.
Here, Haaland junior adopted the Norwegian system of playing a variety of sports as a child, encouraged by his father, including handball, golf, and athletics, alongside football.
A five-year-old Haaland also reportedly achieved a world record in his age category for the standing long jump, with a recorded distance of 1.63 metres in 2006, with his father explaining: "It was before [Erling] started playing football. We used to take him to athletics so he could test himself.
“Erling played handball, athletics and cross-country skiing until he turned 14.
"Versatility is important. You get to develop completely different sides of the body, and that can be positive no matter what you do."
Karsten Warholm – the one lap wonder, with or without obstacles
Slapping his own face bright red pre-race, a shirt-ripping beast post-exertion, Karsten Warholm is renowned for his warrior-like antics on the athletics track at the beginning and end of the 400m hurdles or 400m flat, his specialist events.
Bookending the roars is the 27-year-old’s all-or-nothing from gun-to-tape run, which has seen him become a three-time world champion, Olympic gold medallist at Tokyo 2020, and two-time world record holder in the 400m hurdles.
It took 29 years for anyone to break one of the oldest world records in track and field – the men's 400m hurdles. Warholm beat Kevin Young's time of 46.78s by 0.08s in front of a home crowd in Oslo, Norway on 1 July 2021, setting a new time of 46.70s. At the Japan Games, he broke his own record, going under the 46-second barrier with 45.94.
Yet the inner Viking in the 2021 World Male Athlete of the Year – superseded by compatriot and fellow soon-to-be-iconic middle-distance runner, Jakob Ingebrigtsen, the Olympic gold medallist in 1500 metres and world champion at 5,000 metres – hasn’t come from anywhere other than himself, after the leave-the-kids-alone policy from his nation and his parents.
“I think a lot of people can learn from (Norway’s system),” said Warholm, after winning gold in Tokyo and who didn’t specialise in hurdles until he was 20. “I never felt any pressure. My parents never pushed me, but that also created something inside me that I had my own drive, I had my own flame.”
Kristian Blummenfelt – triathlon endurance king
From Olympic gold in triathlon, to multiple world titles and the fastest Ironman finish in history at the 70.3-mile distance (113.0 km) – in his first attempt – over an 18-month period, Norway’s Kristian Blummenfelt can lay claim to being the best endurance athlete in the world right now.
On 25 July 2021, Blummenfelt secured Norway’s first Olympic gold medal at a Games since London 2012, where the women’s team won gold in handball, and Eirik Verås Larsen bagged the title in the 1000m kayak sprint.
The delayed 2021 Ironman World Championship was held in Utah on 7 May 2022 where Blummenfelt claimed the title and the men's record with a time of 7:49:16. He became the first triathlete in history to win the Ironman world title while also holding the Olympic title, matching the achievement of Bermuda’s Flora Duffy in women’s racing.
On 5 June 2022, the then 28-year-old became the first person to complete an Ironman-distance triathlon – 2.4-mile (3.9 km) swim, a 112-mile (180.2 km) cycle concluding with a marathon run (26.22-mile/42.2 km – in under seven hours. Blummenfelt completed the Pho3nix Sub-7 Sub-8 event at the Lausitzring race track in Germany, in a time of 6:44:25.
The youngest of three children Blummenfelt was not born into an elite athletic family but like most Norwegians, they spent much free time outdoors, hiking, skiing and camping. Blummenfelt was a swimmer and footballer in his youth, before diverting his attentions towards triathlon. He was also one of Norway’s best junior distance runners, competing at the European Cross Country Championships in 2011.
Eyes are now firmly on defending his title come Paris 2024 in the ‘short distance’ of 1.5km swim, 40km bike ride and 10km run. “I’m trying to find some leg speed again to be race fit for Paris,” said Blummenfelt. “It’s going to be an epic Games, a big race, I’m really looking forward to it.”
Norway at Paris 2024
Blummenfelt is no doubt not the only one looking forward to France's Games in 13 months' time. With an increasing number of superstar athletes coming from their midst, the nation's sports fans will be itching to see if their plethora of stars can perform once again on the world stage.
As Ingebrigtsen put it after winning male athlete of the year at the Norwegian sports awards in 2022: “It’s cool to be Norwegian in the year that has just been. Per inhabitant, we must be the nation with the most quality.”
He's not wrong.
