Erling Haaland: one of the best footballers in the world
Magnus Carlsen: easily the greatest chess player of all time
Jakob Ingebrigsten: one of the greatest distance runners of all time
Karsten Warholm: the greatest 400h of all time
Casper Ruud: one of the best tennis players in the world
Jakob Ingebrigsten, at this point in his a career, isn't even in the top 10 of all time, probably not even top 20.
Correct. Jakob is maybe the best distance runner in the last two years, which isn't even an "era" yet. Just one Olympic gold and one Worlds gold as a senior. Needs to be reassessed in a decade or after his career.
When you see the sudden rise of a nation or a particular group you can generally assume there is more involved than talent and hard work - because that can be found anywhere.
But they don't excel. Instead they give the world really bizarre things like Greta, gender identiy politics and strict censorship
You are the bizarre one -I didn’t mean those things. What I meant is this: It’s hilarious that Sweden has become Norway’s little brother! - Even a stellar talent like Andreas Almgren has to look up to his Norwegian colleagues..!
Countries like Serbia and Croatia are far more impressive.
When was the last time Norway qualified for the world cup in sports like Football, Basketball, Rugby, Cricket, Volleyball etc. etc.
When was the last time Norway had a tennis great besides Casper Ruud. Serbia always has great tennis players since the 1960s.
You are of course right about Serbia and Croatia. But Norwegians are excited and proud about Norway’s current fourth or fifth golden wave tip in sports, but waves come and go (Sweden and Finland have had their, and will of course again sweep Norway away, and even the US will come up with some distance runners -again…)
Isn't it strange that Norway, a country with less than half the population of Ohio has produced:
Erling Haaland: one of the best footballers in the world
Magnus Carlsen: easily the greatest chess player of all time
Jakob Ingebrigsten: one of the greatest distance runners of all time
Karsten Warholm: the greatest 400h of all time
Casper Ruud: one of the best tennis players in the world
Like come on, you don't see this much talent coming out of countries 10x Norway's size.
I think our social system means that we get to utilize close to 100% of our talent pool. We don't have large parts of our population in poverty and thus unable to pursue their interests. But this generation has truly been unique.
Add to that, a population that isn't raised on crisps, canned cheese and Big Gulps.
It's worth looking at Norway's general social system in comparison to America. Norway found oil wealth within it's borders and in 1990 created the Sovereign Wealth Fund to the tune of $1.5billion. The amount of social services able to be provided by keeping public resources the property of the public is truly unbelievable (~$250,000/Norwegian). Contrast that to the US where these resources are privatized and the wealth put straight into the hands of the few. (Of course the elephant in the room is corruption, perhaps the most abnormal thing about Norway is that these billions of dollars have remained relatively above-board).
The outcome in sports here shows itself rather clearly. In the US and countries like it poverty is so rampant that many youths see sports as their only way out. It's no wonder black Americans are over represented in big-money American sports. It's literally their only way out of the cycle of poverty. Contrast that to Norway and countries like it kids have the freedom to try sports and continue if they like/are good at them.
It's also worth noting that a lot of these high level athletes are from Bergen, which is somewhat of an outlier in terms of type-A competitiveness in Norway.
Norway a generation or so actually made a children’s bill of rights when it comes to sports and it has had a massive impact on their success overall. They also subsidize youth recreation, have almost all of the kids in sporting activities.
Things we would never do in the US like:
Every kid has access to LOW cost recreational activities.
No national championships before 15 and no posting of scores for youth sports online.
A focus on development and playing multiple sports.
Practice to competition ratios.
I think this allows kids to try multiple sports and not get specific in the wrong sport (like committing your life to basketball when you are going to be 5-9). Low rate of burn out so the athlete actually wants to train when they are older (Jakob, Warholm, the Tri guys all train really hard)
Jakob Ingebrigsten, at this point in his a career, isn't even in the top 10 of all time, probably not even top 20.
Correct. Jakob is maybe the best distance runner in the last two years, which isn't even an "era" yet. Just one Olympic gold and one Worlds gold as a senior. Needs to be reassessed in a decade or after his career.
Dude doesn't even have a real world record.....
Seriously though the all time top 10 list (or even 20) is crazy hard to break into unless you have a ton of recency bias and only care about times. Lots of people have a couple medals and 3-4 years of dominance. Only a few have like a decade. And figuring out if Herb Elliot's 3 years of dominance and then retiring is better or worse than Snells sticking around for another couple years for a second cycle versus Coe getting paid to run is tough. Same thing with WC. If Ryun had won those in say 65 and 67 we might look at the loss in 68 as more of a conditions issue.